


And Heaven, Too

by Jolli_Bean



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bottom Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Connor (Detroit: Become Human) Has a Penis, Falling In Love, Getting Back Together, Light Angst, M/M, Post-Peaceful Android Revolution (Detroit: Become Human), Top Hank Anderson, Voice Activated Orgasms, Weird android sex, Wire Play, and then falling in love again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:14:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 43,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26564959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jolli_Bean/pseuds/Jolli_Bean
Summary: “I’ve been thinking a lot about the nature of open endings since I read your book,” Connor tells Hank, staring at his folded hands in his lap.Hank shifts in his seat to look at him. “Yeah?”Connor nods. “About how sometimes things look one way, but they can be something else. And about how things keep going after the story ends.” He glances over at Hank, shrugging. “It makes everything seem less final when you think of it like that.”~~After the revolution, Hank and Connor get together. But they both have their own burdens, and they don't know how to heal together.So they break up. Connor goes to D.C., and Hank gets back into writing, an old high school hobby, and publishes a book almost through happenstance.And two years later, they reconnect in D.C., the first stop on Hank's book tour, and discover that their own ending doesn't have to be nearly so final.
Relationships: Hank Anderson/Connor
Comments: 30
Kudos: 124





	1. the devil in the details

It started that morning outside Chicken Feed, when Hank hugged Connor first but Connor was the last to let go. And it continued when Hank invited Connor to come back to his place for the day, and then a few, and then indefinitely. It was when he found Connor asleep on the couch when Hank didn't even realize he could do that, or that he looked so alive when he did, when Hank sat there and watched him and felt himself thawing.

And after that, it happens fast. It's in the quiet, fond looks Connor gives him, and the way Hank feels attached to someone beyond his dog for the first time in years...the way he feels like he would miss Connor if he was gone, and the way he's certain Connor would miss him.

That's something - it’s more remarkable that someone would miss him than anything else, but it's all...something.

Connor kisses him first, and Hank thinks as it happens that they're moving too quickly - that he's not sure he's able to be there for someone right now, even if he's trying, because he's still so fucked up, still carrying so many burdens.

But that isn't what Hank says.

Instead, he asks Connor if he knows what he's doing, and what he means by it, and Connor rolls his eyes, because of course he acts like he doesn't understand things sometimes, but he almost always does. He only ever acts after running a thousand preconstructions, so of course he knows.

"I mean that I care about you," Connor says.

It's two weeks after the revolution, and three since Hank met Connor, and he knows he should say that maybe they shouldn't. It would be the responsible thing, and the fair one. He cares about Connor, too, and he wants this, yeah, but what he wants more than Connor is to not fuck things up between them.

And he thinks he will. Or maybe he knows it, if only because that's mostly what he's done the last few years. He fucks good things up almost as a matter of foregone conclusion.

But instead, Hank kisses Connor back - because it's easier, because he _does_ care about him, so much. Because he's shit at talking and so he doesn't know how to broach any of his concerns about hard things, even if he also knows they should absolutely talk.

Connor isn't stupid, of course - he saw Hank that night, passed out on his kitchen floor, so of course he knows the shape Hank's demons take. Maybe Hank's struggles and addictions and vices are all factors in whatever preconstructions he's run, and maybe he's decided it's worth the calculated risk.

That's what Hank tells himself, the escape he crafts for himself.

Connor sleeps in his bed that night. They kiss, and Connor runs his hands over Hank like he's trying to learn his shape or reassure himself he's there, and Hank thinks maybe this time, he can keep the things that matter.

Things are good...at least to start.

And maybe that’s why they both hold on as long as they do, because things _are_ good for so much of the time, and for a long time, maybe that feels like enough to outweigh the bad. Or maybe they just both know they don’t have anywhere else to go - Hank isn’t sure.

But, either way, they hold on, even when it becomes apparent that their individual needs aren’t quite slotting together right. Connor has so much baggage, despite his young life - he needs someone to be there for him, and the trouble with that is that Hank’s own issues have made him terribly unreliable.

He drinks too much and he passes out, or he leaves the house without telling Connor because he’s pissed off about something (usually at himself). Connor has to call him looking for him, or he has to peel him off the bathroom floor and walk him to bed, and Hank hates that he’s not enough for him, because he wants to be.

God, he really wants to be.

He keeps trying. They have so many good days, days when they both care more about being loved by the other than they do about their own self-loathing, days that are quiet and peaceful and a comfort to both of them. 

And the sex is great even if Connor isn’t equipped with anything. Connor is adventurous, and it sort of reminds Hank of when he used to be, too. It’s nice; it makes him feel young, and that’s refreshing. Connor will come home with all kinds of pretty things for himself, and Hank feels wanted, and he feels like they can make it through this, like they can be enough for each other.

They go on like that for months, neither of them ever talking about the ways things aren’t quite working, until they finally break in March.

The first thing that happens the day things fall apart is that Jeff calls Hank and tells him he’s being fired. He’s been suspended since November, and if shit hadn’t been so messy after the revolution, he probably would have been let go much sooner. Jeff is apologetic about it, and Hank says he understands...and he does, really. They both knew this wasn’t going to go any other way. No one assaults an FBI agent without consequences.

Connor comes home not long after, with another shopping bag, and Hank thinks good, great, Connor’s timing is impeccable and he’s done something else to take Hank’s mind off of this. They’ll go to bed, and Hank can lose himself in him, and maybe things will look better in the morning...

(He doesn’t even want the job, is the fucking wild thing. He’s hated it there for so long, and he’s known they’ve been on the wrong side of so much. But failure tastes bitter all the same, especially after so much of it.)

“Are you okay?” Connor asks when he sees Hank at the kitchen table, and Hank forces a smile.

“Yeah, sweetheart,” he says. “What do you have?”

Connor scuffs the toe of his shoe along the carpet, uncharacteristically reserved. He doesn’t flush, but Hank wonders if he might in this moment if he could. “I...well. Maybe I should have asked you.”

He sets the bag on the table and pushes it towards Hank, and Hank looks inside. He wonders at first what’s any different about this - it’s something black and lacy, but that doesn’t even matter because Connor looks gorgeous in everything.

And then he realizes it isn’t Connor’s size.

“Oh,” Hank says, stomach falling, because this...well. He doesn’t know how to do this. He doesn’t know how to be wanted, doesn’t even really think anyone should want him, least of all Connor when he can’t figure out how to support him in the way he needs. “I...um.”

“I’m sorry,” Connor says, retrieving the bag. “I’ll return it. I wasn’t thinking.”

Hank wants to do what Connor wants, always. He wants to not be so fucking sad that doing this feels impossible. But he can’t change what he is, can he? That’s the whole problem.

And it breaks his heart how Connor just...accepts it. Accepts him. Like this is all the more he deserves.

Hank holds him that night, threading his fingers through his hair, and he knows he has to let him go.

~~

Connor knows it’s coming.

He knows because of how close Hank keeps him that night, and because he knows he hasn’t always been fair - he’s asked so much of Hank, needed Hank to be there for him in ways he knows he can’t, added guilt, unintentional or otherwise, when Hank doesn’t need any more to bear.

It’s hard on Hank, to be the only thing Connor has.

It’s unfair to ask Hank to be the only thing he has.

Connor knows that. Maybe he’s always known it. He just hoped, maybe...he hoped that they could be enough to fix each other, that the good between them could overwrite their individual burdens. He was stubborn about it, the way he always is, plowed ahead when he knew he should be reserved instead...

It’s both of their faults, and neither of theirs, that they can’t fit together quite right when they’re crushed under the weight of everything else. Maybe sometimes love is enough, like Connor hoped it would be here.

But he thinks now that it was an idealistic thought. He used to think he was a pragmatist, but now he’s realizing that he’s an idealist, and that it hurts to be one.

Connor gets up first in the morning, and he puts coffee on and lets Sumo out and then sits at the kitchen table, hands folded, waiting for Hank. He thinks he owes it to him to try to make this easier on him, because he understands. He does. There’s no resentment in him.

Connor hears Hank get up, and he wants to go to him, but he forces himself to stay, to give Hank the time he needs to collect himself.

Hank takes longer than usual, and when he finally joins Connor in the kitchen, he looks at Sumo’s full food bowl, and the coffee pot, and Connor sitting there, waiting.

“Hey,” Hank says. “Thanks for letting Sumo out.”

Connor nods. He swallows thickly, staring at his folded hands, and says, “This isn’t working, is it?”

He doesn’t know what to expect from Hank, doesn’t know if he’ll be defensive or pretend he doesn’t know what Connor is talking about.

But Hank just sighs and sits down across from Connor, laying his hand over his. “I don’t know,” he says softly. “I don’t think so. I just...I love you, but I don’t feel like I’m good for you right now, and I just...can’t live with that.” 

Connor nods. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I wanted us to be happy, and I was being stubborn. I should have thought...”

“Hey,” Hank says, squeezing Connor’s hand. “I don’t want you to feel bad for wanting something. I just...shit, this is hard. I just think we should maybe try to work on our own shit, you know? I’m not...I’m not getting better, and I don’t think you are either.”

Connor has nightmares all the time. He’s plagued by a constant anxiety that he doesn’t belong anywhere. No, he isn’t getting any better.

He shakes his head and looks up at Hank. “I wanted us to be enough for each other.”

“I know,” Hank says. “But it doesn’t mean we care about each other any less if we aren’t.”

Connor can’t cry, but his throat still feels thick when he says, “Do you want me to move out?”

Hank gets up and rounds the table to stand behind him, wrapping his arms around Connor’s shoulders. “It’s okay. You can stay as long as you want.”

Connor knows Hank means it, but he also thinks he shouldn’t. Hank is right, at the core of it - they can’t change like this. They’re too caught in some cycle they can’t escape, and if Connor stays, then everything will stay the same.

And he does want them to be able to move on, even if he doesn’t want to leave Hank. He wants better, for both of them.

“I think maybe I should go to D.C. with the others,” Connor says to Hank that night. Markus and North have both told him he has a place there if he ever wants to join them, and he thinks it’s about the only place he has, aside from at Hank’s side, that might be his.

And maybe this time Hank knew it was coming - it’s a small relief, finding that they’re still on the same page about so much - because he wraps an arm around Connor’s shoulders and squeezes.

“Yeah,” he says softly. “Maybe that would be good.”

Connor packs his things in one carry-on bag, and Hank buys his ticket and drives him to the airport.

“Are you going to be okay?” Hank asks when he drops him off.

Connor rolls his coin over his knuckles. “Are you?”

“I don’t know. I’m going to try to be.”

Connor nods, looking up at Hank’s face. “I think I will be, too.”

“Keep in touch, okay? I mean...if you want to.”

Connor leans across the console to kiss Hank’s cheek. “Bye, Hank,” he says softly.

And then he leaves on his own.

Connor walks to his gate, and he boards his plane for D.C., and he thinks this is the end. It seems like the way they end.

Even with his advanced preconstruction software, he doesn’t know that this is actually how they start. 

Not yet.

~~

Hank wonders, when he lets himself into his empty house, when Sumo is obviously looking for Connor, if he made a mistake. It would have been easier to hold onto him, to keep going the way they were. He knows that, but he feels it like a pang now.

It was the right thing, though.

He thinks Connor knew that, too. They both knew it.

Hank doesn’t know if that makes it easier or harder, knowing that they’ve both been trying so hard to fool themselves.

He goes back to the bedroom and looks at Connor’s empty closet, and he brings a bottle with him and drinks himself to sleep. He already knows he can’t break the habit on his own, so...fuck, what’s one more night, even if it does come with its own sort of guilt, if only because the whole point of this was for both of them to try to heal in the way they need, the way they couldn’t together.

It would be very easy to let himself be consumed by old habits, Hank thinks as he dozes off, to let everything stay the same anyway. It would be easier to make this entirely about what was right for Connor and forget about himself, because he hasn’t been much good at caring for himself the last few years.

But that would be a disservice to Connor, Hank knows, to let all of this be in vain. It makes him want to be better.

He loves Connor for that - he needed someone to make him want to do better. He couldn’t have made it here on his own.

Hank reaches for the notebook on his bedside table - he used to write in high school, and he’s been trying to journal the last few months. He’s found that self-reflection helps, and that he’s spent the last few years being profoundly bad at it.

What he writes is, “I wish I was made to be good for him the way it feels like he was made for me. This shit sucks.”

That’s the seed of something, too, that page, the scribbled, slanted writing. It’s the start of trying to reckon with himself, with the two of them, an effort that will bloom into something well beyond him.

But of course Hank doesn’t see that yet. All he knows is that this shit hurts, and that he feels sick, that he wishes Connor was here and is also glad he’s gone, because he knows D.C. will be good for Connor, and he hopes this place can be good for him.

It was once. Maybe it can be again.

Hank writes a note to himself to research rehab facilities and therapists tomorrow. It’s easier to hold himself accountable if he writes it down.

And he wants to be accountable - to Connor, even if they never talk again, if not to himself.

Hank thinks about writing a note to call Connor, too, but that feels too soon - Connor is the one who moved across the country, and he thinks he should let Connor decide when the time is right...if it ever is.

He makes a note to call Jeff instead.

Hank looks at the bottle and the journal on his bedside table, and then at the empty space beside him where Connor would be. He invites Sumo onto the bed before he falls asleep, and it doesn’t fix anything, but it does help.

For tonight, that’s enough.

It takes Hank a few days longer to quell his self-hatred enough to start looking into rehab programs, to decide he’s worth that effort and really believe himself, but he does do it eventually. He calls around, finds one that feels like a good fit, and hell, since he doesn’t have a job right now, he figures, what is he waiting for? He makes the arrangements to start the inpatient program so he can’t back out later, and he wonders how Connor is doing in D.C., if he likes the apartment he’s sharing with the Jericho leaders...if he’s okay.

Hank gets Jeff to take care of Sumo while he’s gone at the program, and he sits in the parking lot on the day he’s supposed to check himself in, staring at his phone and his text thread with Connor. He can’t decide what he wants to do here, but he won’t have his phone for the first week. He wants the decision to be Connor’s if and when they start talking again, if only because he’s gone through this and been hurt before, and Connor never has, and he’s trying to let him have whatever space he wants to reckon with that.

But he also doesn’t want Connor to try to reach him in the next week and to think he’s being ignored, so eventually Hank does decide to text him.

He keeps it simple, and to the point. “Hey,” he writes. “You don’t have to answer this. Just wanted to let you know I’m starting rehab and I won’t have my phone...just didn’t want you to think I’m ignoring you if you wanted to talk.”

Hank doesn’t know what to expect from Connor, but his reply is immediate. “I don’t understand why you couldn’t do that when we were together.”

Yeah, Hank thinks. That’s fair. It would feel harsh, but he doesn’t think Connor means it that way - Connor isn’t manipulative like that, and he doesn’t try to guilt Hank. If he’s saying it, it’s because he genuinely doesn’t understand.

“Because not being there for you in the way you needed made me hate myself,” Hank says, because he doesn’t think he can ignore it, and he does want Connor to understand why it took letting him go to make Hank feel like he could do this. “I never knew how to see beyond that, I guess.”

“Okay,” Connor replies. “I get it.”

Hank doesn’t know if he does or not, but he’s already late, so he turns his phone off and slips it into his pocket.

He doesn’t think Connor is pissed. Connor knew they weren’t working just the same as Hank did. He just thinks Connor is confused, at least about some things, and honestly, that might hurt more.

Hank writes a lot during rehab. It helps, grounding himself in that way, giving himself a space to process. At first, it’s just more jumbled thoughts - many of them about Connor, but some of them about Cole, and Jen, and his work...what went right, and what went wrong.

And then those thoughts slowly start to take another shape. Hank hasn’t written fiction since he started academy - he just didn’t have the time or the need for the hobby - but it’s easier to process certain things with the veil of a story protecting him from getting too close to what really hurts.

It’s still a transparent story, about a human and his android partner, about the start of their relationship, and the ways they fall apart.

“I can’t change,” Hank’s human main character says at some point. “I thought we were so different because you’re running on programming, and so everything you do is predestined, or preordained...but we’re the same. I’m just as trapped by what this world has made me as you are by the way your creators made you.”

And that really feels true to Hank, at least in this moment. He was always going to lose Connor, was never going to be what he needed, because he’s trapped by his grief and his depression, unable to be anything other than what he was made into by the world around him.

Hank doesn’t know yet if he can change. He doesn’t know yet how the story he’s writing ends. He only knows he hasn’t written it yet, and so it exists in a world of possibility, in an endless field under an open sky.

Until he writes the ending, it could be anything.

(And maybe that’s why it takes him so long.)

Hank makes friends in rehab, which surprises him, and it doesn’t. Before he withdrew himself, he never had any trouble making friends, and felt like he had them everywhere.

Once he starts feeling a little better, when the withdrawal symptoms subside a bit, some of that familiar, easygoing energy returns to him. He talks to people in therapy, and during free time, and he finds a few people he likes, and that feels good, just realizing that he still has that in him.

He hasn’t made a new friend in years, but...well, that actually isn’t true, is it? There’s Connor, obviously....but Connor sort of forced his way in.

One of the patients Hank talks to regularly, Ken, is a man in his forties, with a son in New York City who he’s very proud of. Hank is surprised to realize that he can talk with him without feeling jealous, without wondering in that sick sort of way that he used to why Ken’s son is alive and his isn’t.

He supposes he’s proud of that, too.

“What are you writing?” Ken asks one day while Hank is jotting something down in his notebook. (“We’re both alive,” his main character says, “and we’re both so trapped.”)

“Oh,” Hank says. “It’s nothing. Just a story, or some shit.”

“Fiction?” Ken asks. Hank raises an eyebrow, and he says, “Sorry. My kid’s in publishing, so I get curious.”

“Oh,” Hank says. “Yeah. It’s fiction.”

“Writing’s cheaper than therapy.”

“Too bad I need both,” Hank says, but it’s a joke, and they both laugh.

He thinks that’s the last time they’ll talk about it. He doesn’t see why they should again.

That night, he writes the ending. It’s happy, to an extent - they’re together, his two characters, even if that feels a little pitiful on his part, like wish fulfillment. His main character grows in the ways Hank wasn’t sure he could, and that feels pitiful, too.

His main character dies, and he and his android partner wake up together in a programmed afterlife, where they can be together.

“You won’t get tired of me after an eternity?” Hank’s main character asks, and he doesn’t write the android’s answer. That’s where the conversation, and a few lines later, the book, ends.

It’s an artistic decision, to some extent - the book is about the ways the characters are different and the ways they’re the same, about the ugly tendencies and beautiful things that bind them together, and so it seems to fit, to never have that resolution for the main character after an entire book of wondering if he’s good enough.

But really, it’s a decision made out of necessity, to let the reader decide, because Hank doesn’t know the answer. He wrote the whole book, and he still doesn’t know. He knows his main character, but he knows the android far less, in the same ways he thinks Connor will always feel a little unknowable to him.

Maybe he’ll write it someday, just for himself. He’s sure he’ll keep thinking about it. But for now, this is all he has.

Hank takes his journal with him, packs it carefully with his things as he prepares to leave. He eats breakfast with Ken on his last day, and Ken slips him a business card across the table.

“I told my son a bit about you, and about your story,” Ken says. “He’s interested in giving it a read, if you were interested.”

Hank knows that’s only the case because of who he is, because of the role he played during the revolution - of course a publisher is interested in what he has to say about androids, even if it is fiction.

It leaves a sour taste in his mouth, because he doesn’t think most people would care about Connor’s perspective nearly as much.

He tries to hand the card back. “I just wrote it for myself,” he says, but Ken won’t take it.

“Just hang on to it,” he says. “In case you change your mind. Your voice might help things.”

Help the androids, he means, because things are still rough. The revolution was the first step, but there are miles left to go.

Hank sighs, looks at the card one more time before he pockets it. “I’ll think about it,” he says.

He goes home to Sumo, to a house that feels just as empty as it did when he left it despite the “Welcome Home” banner Jeff hung up to greet him.

Things feel the same.

For now, they feel the same.

~~

Connor can’t say if he likes D.C. or not, if he’s being honest. He likes Markus and the others, but he doesn’t always feel like he has a place with them, even if they’re all crammed into the same small apartment. Each of them has told him to let his guilt go - he did what he could before breaking his programming entirely, saving Hank’s life and letting Echo and Ripple go, refusing to shoot Chloe at Kamski’s house...they tell him all the time that he wasn’t on the wrong side of things in the way he always feels like he was.

He just doesn’t quite agree yet, is the problem.

(It doesn’t help matters either that he deviated as much for Hank as the other androids. If Hank hadn’t been in his life, would Connor have even gotten here? He doesn’t know, and he doesn’t like that he doesn’t know.)

So maybe it’s the wrong way to look at things, but being in D.C. with them feels like atonement.

All the same, sometimes Connor doesn’t even think he deserves that.

North comes and sits on the couch with him a few days after his arrival, knocking her shoulder into his. “You have to stop,” she says plainly.

“Stop what?”

“The self-loathing. You have to let yourself move on.”

Connor wishes he knew how to do that. He wishes he knew how to feel like he’d done enough during the revolution, and like he hadn’t spoiled what he and Hank had by pushing too hard, the way he always does, the way he was made to.

Still, despite everything, Connor settles in. The others each force their way into his life, but North in particular becomes a close friend of his over the few weeks he’s been in D.C., and after a while, Connor starts going with them as they meet with politicians and lobby for change.

He doesn’t mention it to anyone, but he counts down the days until Hank’s inpatient stay at the rehab facility is up. He agonizes over whether he should call him once he gets out or not.

He isn’t sure. Hank told him to keep in touch, but Connor doesn’t want to push too hard again and fracture what little they have left. 

He’s mostly made up his mind not to reach out, which is why it surprises Connor so much that he also finds himself dialing Hank’s number as he lies on the couch, his makeshift bed, that evening without thinking about it.

He should hang up, he knows he should - he doesn’t know what he’s doing at all - but Hank is too quick for him, picking up before he can.

“Hey,” Hank says down the line. He sounds pleased to hear from him, which quells some of Connor’s anxiety the smallest bit.

“Hi,” he says. “I was just calling to see how you’re doing. I know you got home today.”

“Yeah,” Hank says. “I’m okay. Four weeks sober. Maybe it’ll stick this time.”

“It will,” Connor says softly. He wants to believe that - he thinks Hank deserves to feel better.

“How are you doing?”

“I’m okay,” Connor says. “Is this okay? Me calling?”

“I told you that you could call, Con. I meant that. I mean, I still give a shit about you.”

Connor knows that, but he also thinks maybe he’s just making things harder on himself. He can’t talk to Hank without thinking of every mistake he made with him, reliving them and letting them churn in his thoughts until he feels foolish and small.

He’s quiet for long enough that Hank clears his throat and says, “You want to tell me about D.C.?”

Connor shrugs. “It’s okay, I guess. I like North and the others. It’s weird living piled on top of each other like we’re in a college dorm. The work is hard...I don’t know that we’ve made much progress yet.”

Connor wishes he had something better to say. He doesn’t want to sound so petulant about this, not when what happened between them was amicable, when he understands that it needed to happen.

The last thing he wants is to guilt Hank. He doesn’t want to hurt him at all.

“I’m sorry,” Hank says, and Connor quickly says, “It’s okay.”

He means it. It’s all he can do.

“Anyway,” Connor says after a quiet moment passes between them. “I don’t want to keep you.”

“Oh,” Hank says. “Yeah. I guess it’s late.”

He sounds reluctant, so Connor bites the inside of his cheek and says, “I watched Terminator with the others earlier. You remember watching that together?”

It was one of the very first things they did as a couple, the night Connor kissed him. He can still feel Hank’s arm slipping from the back of the couch to his shoulders as they sat there together, still remembers Hank’s warmth as he shifted closer to him.

“Yeah,” Hank says fondly. “Good movie.”

“A few plot holes,” Connor says.

Hank snorts. “You think there are plot holes in everything.”

“That’s because there are.”

“Suspension of disbelief, Con,” Hank says, laughing.

Despite himself, Connor cracks a small smile. It’s nice to know they can still joke like this, that things can still feel some semblance of normal between them, if he’ll only let them.

“They’re good friends,” Connor offers, even though Hank didn’t ask about his roommates. “They’re trying to help. It’s just...hard sometimes, being around them.”

“Hard how?”

“They were always on the right side of things. And I wasn’t. I know they don’t resent me or even blame me for it, but I wish I could look back on things knowing I did everything I could the way they can.”

“You did,” Hank says. “You did so much.”

“It doesn’t feel like it.” Not when he’s surrounded by the others. Connor did what he could...but what he could feels so fucking small in comparison.

“Hey,” Hank says gently. “Don’t do that, okay? I know you can’t help being hard on yourself, but you were under CyberLife’s surveillance the whole time, and...I don’t know. From where I’m standing, you did plenty.”

Connor shifts on the couch to lie on his side and tuck his knees to his chest, wrapping an arm around them. He wishes it didn’t mean more coming from Hank than from his other friends, but...he thinks things are always going to mean more coming from Hank.

“Thanks,” he says softly.

“It’s true,” Hank says.

Connor knows he just said he should let Hank go, but it seems like they’re both in quiet agreement that they’re trying to hold onto the conversation however they can.

“I, um,” Hank says, without Connor promoting him. “I wrote a lot in rehab.”

Connor perks up, the way he always does when Hank opens up and lets him in. “Journaling, you mean?”

“Sometimes. I actually wrote a novel, though.”

“You did?”

“Yeah. Some other patient’s hot shot New Yorker publishing house son was interested in giving it a read. I mean, I’m not going to send it to him...he was only interested in it because of who I am, and what it’s about, but...”

“What’s it about?” Connor asks, curious. He knew Hank journaled, and that he used to write in high school, but he didn’t know he was interested in picking it up again.

“It’s...about the job. Police work, crime scenes, that sort of thing. Just sort of my way of processing leaving the force, I guess.”

Connor wants to ask if he can read it, but he thinks that would be crossing a line. Instead, he says, “I think you should send it.”

“Eh. I don’t know.”

“Hank,” Connor says firmly, “you’ve always had something important to say.”

Hank is quiet for a moment, and then he says, “I’ll think about it.”

“Good,” Connor says, with no idea that Hank didn’t know how to tell him the book was about the two of them instead. If he had told Connor the truth, Connor may have given him very different advice.

But then Connor never would have read the book, and there would be so many things he still didn’t know - about Hank, about himself, about the two of them together.

Lying isn’t a good thing on its own, exactly, Connor doesn’t think. 

But all the same, sometimes good things bloom from lies.

They talk long enough that Connor loses track of the time, and it’s comfortable and it isn’t all at once, which Connor supposes is just their new normal.

And that isn’t the last time they talk, although it also doesn’t become a habit - they both try, in their own ways, to protect themselves and maintain their boundaries. But they call each other every now and then, and it always feels the same, comfortable and not at the same time. Nothing changes there, and that’s almost a relief.

But everything else does change. Connor and his friends have their first big win in D.C., a genuine step towards progress in android labor rights, and it’s something Connor contributed to, something that makes him want to fight for more. A lawyer they’ve been working with asks Connor out a few months later, and in the end, Connor does join him for a movie.

Connor goes out with him a few times, and then dates someone else, and Amanda Stern establishes the Stern Foundation to employ all of them and support their work, and Connor and his friends can afford to move out of their tiny apartment. He and North get their own place to share, and he starts to feel like he knows who he is, and he still calls Hank every now and again, thinks that he isn’t sure how to stop - that Hank is part of him, always, if not the part he first thought.

Two years pass, and every time Connor talks to Hank, he’s working on his book - rewriting, and then editing, getting revisions back from the publisher and eventually working on marketing. It sounds important, like his publisher thinks it’s going to be successful.

Connor thinks from time to time of asking Hank to read it, but he isn’t sure that’s his right - he encouraged Hank to publish it, sure, but they also don’t talk more than three or four times in a year (Connor doesn’t know why Hank doesn’t call him any more frequently, but for his part, he doesn’t call because he thinks it would be hard, having Hank as a more permanent fixture in his life, that it might make him yearn for something when he likes the life he’s built. He doesn’t want to be greedy.).

He just doesn’t think it’s his place, to read Hank’s words before they’re published. And, to be fair, Hank never offers, so maybe he must feel about the same.

Hank’s book is set for release in October of 2036. Reviews should start coming in a week prior from advance copies, and Connor has a media alert set so he’ll know when they’re published.

He’s out with Brandon, the social media manager he’s been seeing for a few months, when the first goes online. Connor reads it in a background process - he doesn’t intend to deviate from the conversation he’s holding at all - but his brow pinches together involuntarily as he does. The reviewer talks about “a stirring love story between android and human”, and “a thoughtful meditation on the things that bind us together”...and Connor realizes all at once that this isn’t the book Hank told him he was publishing, the one about serving on the force and about policing in Detroit.

This book? This one is about him.

“Hey, Con,” Brandon says, tapping his hand and laughing a little. “You okay? You’re red.”

“Yeah,” Connor says quickly. “Sorry. Reviews are up for Hank’s book.”

It’s not what he means to say. What he _means_ to say is that reviews are up, and the book isn’t what he was expecting, and he thinks Hank wrote and published a book about him without ever knowing how to tell him - a very Hank-ish thing to do, now that Connor gives it any thought at all.

Brandon sets his fork down and leans back in his seat. “Hank again,” he says.

Connor prickles at that. “What?”

“You know how much you talk about him?”

“I don’t,” Connor says.

“More than I’ve ever talked about an ex with a current boyfriend, anyway,” Brandon says under his breath.

Connor raises an eyebrow. “I never said you were my boyfriend. We’re dating.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ, to-may-to, to-mah-to. We’ve been going out for two months; what else would we be?”

Connor is, admittedly, very reserved about serious relationships as a whole, although he’s dated plenty. He’s had one serious experience since Hank, with a politician, and it ended much less amicably when he fucked Connor and his friends on legislation they were trying to lobby for. Commitment is something he handed out freely to Hank, for nothing at all, and something that Connor has kept close to the chest ever since.

He says it’s because he’s the careful type, and he is, of course. But it’s also because Hank is the measuring stick he puts everyone else up against, and most people don’t pass muster.

Connor knows he should let Brandon’s needling slide - they’re having a nice night, and while the label they apply to themselves isn’t a matter of semantics to Connor, he does understand why it seems that way to Brandon. It doesn’t have to be something they talk about right this second.

But he doesn’t like his autonomy being encroached on, so...

“Right,” Connor says pointedly. “We’re just dating.”

“Fuck,” Brandon says. “Is this about Hank? Because he’s in Detroit and you haven’t seen him in more than _two years_ , and I’m here, and I love you...”

And that’s really the problem, isn’t it? Connor doesn’t have trouble getting people to fall in love with him. He’s just rarely sure how to give it back.

It came so easy with Hank...but that was part of the problem between them in the end, too, the way he pushed them too fast, the way he wanted things to be perfect when in truth they were both so broken...

Connor gets up, and Brandon looks at him, surprised, and tries to reach for his hand. “Come on,” Brandon says. “I’m sorry, okay? Just sit down...you can talk about Hank’s book, if you want. And we can talk about this back at my place...”

Connor sighs. “I think we’re done.”

“Wait, you’re not serious.”

“Yeah,” Connor says, resigned. “I am.” He authorizes his credit card to pay for the meal and says, “It’s on me, okay? Sorry for the shit night.”

He _is_ sorry, he thinks as he leaves the restaurant and ignores Brandon texting and then calling him as he drives. Things fall apart, but it always seems to be his fault when they do.

He doesn’t know why this is so hard

Connor reads the review of Hank’s book more carefully on the drive home, and once he could recite it like it’s ingrained in his code, he calls Hank instead. It rings long enough that Connor thinks Hank is sending him to voicemail, and he has no idea what he should say, or if he should even say anything in a recording, when Hank picks up on the last ring.

“Connor,” he says when he does. “Hey. How are...”

“Don’t ask me how I am,” Connor says, voice tight. “What the fuck, Hank?”

Hank is quiet for a moment, quiet enough that Connor can almost hear him thinking, before he says, “What’s wrong?”

Connor clenches his jaw, hands tight on the steering wheel. “You lied to me.”

“What...”

“The book, Hank, your fucking book. First reviews went up tonight.”

“Oh,” Hank says softly. “They posted early then. They weren’t supposed to until tomorrow. I was, um...actually going to call you a little later so we could talk about it before they did.”

Connor doesn’t know what to think about any of this. He has tears pricking the corners of his eyes when he says, “It’s about us. Isn’t it?”

“I mean,” Hank says, “it’s fiction. It’s not really about anyone if you don’t look too closely.”

“And what if you do?”

“Well,” Hank sighs, “then I guess the devil is in the details.”

Connor shakes his head, frustrated. “Why didn’t you tell me? You could have told me.”

“I don’t know,” Hank says, and he sounds resigned. “At first it seemed like a sad thing to have to say, and you were so encouraging about it...and then it got picked up for publication, and I knew how to tell you even less. I didn’t think anyone was going to want it. Honestly, Connor...I didn’t think it was ever going to be publicly available.”

“You’ve known it’s going to be publicly available for a year and a half.”

“Yeah,” Hank sighs. “I know. I’m sorry. Time just sort of...got away from me.”

Hank is so odd, Connor thinks. Willing to do the hard things in his work, to stick to his convictions, willing to walk right up to a federal agent and punch him across the face to protect Connor, but never sure how to deal with interpersonal discomfort, with an inclination towards letting things fester rather than addressing them, just because the conversation will be hard and so he doesn’t quite know how to have it.

“I know that’s a shit excuse,” Hank says when Connor doesn’t respond. “No one knows I dated you aside from Jeff, and a few of your friends, and they aren’t going to say anything. And I’m not planning to talk about our relationship during the book tour, either. I know that doesn’t make things better between us, but nobody is going to know. I don’t...I mean, I wouldn’t want anyone to read that much into it, either. I’m not trying to open myself up like that.”

No, of course he isn’t, Connor thinks.

“That isn’t the problem,” he says stiffly.

“Then what is?”

“That you didn’t trust me with it in the first place.”

Hank sighs. “I’m sorry. I just...thought you would want to read it if I mentioned it, and I know that would have been your right and I should have let you, but I thought...I don’t know. The only way I was ever going to show it to you was if it went to press first, so that’s the way I let things happen.”

Connor furrows his brow, trying to work out what Hank is saying, because what it sounds like is, “I want you to read it, and this is the only way I was ever going to put it into your hands.”

“Sorry,” Hank says, filling the silence again, “that you got blindsided this way. That wasn’t fair, and I shouldn’t have let that happen.”

“It’s so easy to say sorry after the fact, isn’t it?” Connor replies.

“Yeah. I guess it is.” Hank exhales a long breath of air. “I really was going to call you tonight.”

“That doesn’t make it much better, you know.”

“I know,” Hank says. “Are you, um...doing okay? Otherwise?”

“I broke it off with a guy I’ve been dating for two months before I called you, so no, not really.”

Connor doesn’t honestly know why he tells him. He doesn’t know if there’s some petty part of him trying to make Hank jealous, trying to hurt him in the same way he’s hurt, or if he just wants Hank to comfort him, and he thinks maybe it’s a little bit of both.

“Oh,” Hank says. “Sorry. That sucks.”

“Yeah. I don’t know. I’m getting used to doing it.”

“Do you...want to talk about it?”

“Not really,” Connor says, because he’s not going to tell Hank that Brandon thought he talked about one particular ex too much.

“Okay,” Hank says. “I’m sorry I contributed to the shit night, then.”

Connor lets a quiet moment pass between them, and then he says, “I’m almost back to my apartment. I should go.”

“Okay,” Hank says. “If you want to talk more about this, you can call, okay?”

“Yeah,” Connor says. “I know. Congratulations - it was a really glowing review.”

“Thanks,” Hank says softly. “Are you...”

He trails off, so Connor asks, “What, Hank?”

“Never mind. Don’t worry about it.”

Connor doesn’t press him. “Okay,” he says instead. “Night.”

He hangs up before Hank can say anything else. He gets it, and he knows how Hank is, but he’s still pissed about it.

 _Are you still going to read the book?_ Connor’s preconstruction software supplies as the most likely question Hank was going to ask, and Connor honestly doesn’t know the answer. It’s going to show up on his doorstep in a few weeks - he preordered a physical copy like they’re living in 2010, because he just had to have a Henry Anderson book on his shelf with his few other hard copies.

(Some things about the brief summary make more sense now - Connor just didn’t question it because Hank told him the book was about his police career, and there was nothing that sounded at odds with Hank’s description.)

He doesn’t know what he’s going to do. And he wonders if Hank understands why he’s hurt, that it has so much less to do with Hank lying to him and far more to do with Hank telling Connor’s story without asking him, with the way every little attack on his autonomy and sense of control feels like a death blow.

He reminds himself that Hank doesn’t know the way that plagues him - Connor has plenty of his own shit that he didn’t know how to talk about during their time together, that he tried to keep hidden in hopes it would go away.

But still...Hank should have told him.

North is still sitting in the living room when Connor gets back to their apartment, looking up at him when he steps inside. “Hey,” she says, although she pauses the show she’s watching when she looks over her shoulder and sees his face. “Jesus, are you okay?”

Connor shrugs. “I broke up with Brandon tonight.”

It’s a far, far easier place to start.

“Ah, shit,” North says. “What happened?”

Connor goes to join her, slumping into the couch. “He thought I was talking about Hank too much.”

North looks him over. “...Were you?”

“Probably more than I should have been with a date, yeah.”

“But _you_ broke up with him.”

“Yeah.” Connor scrubs a hand over his face. “I don’t know why this is so hard.”

North inches closer to him and puts an arm around his shoulders. “I mean...you don’t like men who are just interested in something casual because being objectified feels like shit after everything we went through, so you keep dating people who are looking for something serious...which is more than you can give them.”

Connor looks over at her. “Yeah. I guess that’s why.”

North leans her head on his shoulder. “Sorry, Con,” she says softly. 

They sit there together for a long time, North’s head on Connor’s shoulder and Connor’s face in his hands, before Connor finally figures out how to say, “Hank’s book is about our relationship,” through his fingers.

North sits up, looking at him with a furrowed brow. “What?”

“His book. He lied to me about the plot and what it’s about. Reviews are starting to come out, and it’s ‘a love story’.”

“Oh,” North says softly. “How...do you feel about that?”

“Like I wish I had known a year and a half ago,” Connor says. “I don’t know. He says nobody is going to know it’s influenced by anything that happened between us, and that he knows he wouldn’t have had it in him to let me read it before it was published, and I think he wants me to read it...but that’s kind of a shit excuse.”

“Are you going to read it?” North asks softly.

“Fuck, I don’t know.” Connor presses his fingers into his temples, LED spinning red, until North gets up and claps him on the shoulder.

“Come on,” she says. “Amanda and Chloe are getting drinks downtown. Let’s go meet them, get your mind off of this.”

“I don’t...”

“I know you don’t want to, but you always feel better once we’re out,” North says. She goes to the door and pulls her leather blazer and her boots on. “Let’s go, babe.”

If she wasn’t _right_ that a distraction usually helps him, Connor would stay right where he is, but he begrudgingly gets up and follows her. North smiles when he does, slipping her arm into his as they walk down the stairs.

Amanda Stern and Chloe both joined them in D.C. shortly after they started their work here. Amanda is actually the one who provided them so much needed cash reserves to start out, and her voice, both as a programmer and as a human, helped them get their first ounce of traction with some of the D.C. politicians.

She’s helped Connor, too, on a far more personal level, because of course the AI that CyberLife used to control him looked like her, and so knowing her for what she really is, being cared for by her in the way he wanted to be cared for by the AI CyberLife fashioned with her face...that feels a little bit like healing, at least a few old wounds starting to mend themselves.

Connor and North find the two of them at Pitchers, a bar they go to with some frequency because, even though the androids can’t drink without an upgrade both North and Chloe don’t have, the bands and the atmosphere are good enough for it to feel like a worthwhile experience anyway.

“Hey!” Chloe yells from across the bar when she sees them come in, waving them down.

“Hi, honey,” Amanda says to Connor when he and North join them at their bar table. “You okay?”

She can always tell.

“Yeah,” Connor says quickly. “I just broke up with Brandon tonight.”

He feels a little guilty for it, that already all Brandon has become is just an excuse so he won’t have to talk about the ways Hank is actually troubling him, but then, that was always the problem, that Connor didn’t know how to let Brandon be what he actually wanted to be to him.

“Oh!” Chloe says at Amanda’s side, raising her voice over the music. “We were wondering what was wrong when you called - I’m sorry!”

Connor waves her off. “It’s okay. There’s nothing really to talk about, you know?”

North elbows him and wryly says, “We come out when nothing’s wrong, too, you know.”

“We’re just glad when you do,” Amanda says, squeezing Connor’s arm. “How’s Simon doing? I saw Markus and Josh the other day, but I haven’t seen him in a while...”

It’s easy to let the conversation, theirs and those around them, and the music and the noise filter through him and drown everything out, Connor thinks. It almost always works.

It would probably work tonight, too, if he didn’t get an email from Hank with a document attached while he’s sitting there trying to forget him.

“hey,” it says, “i dont know if you bought this already, but idk, im just gonna send it to you so you dont have to wait a few weeks to read it if you want to know whats in it. i hope you will, still, but i get it if you wont. im sorry i didnt know how to tell you what it really was. it was just...well. youll see.”

Too hard? Too much? Too personal?

Connor wishes he knew what Hank was going to say.

He looks at the manuscript file, opens it to stare at the title page in a side process - “And Heaven, Too, by Henry Anderson”. He could read it right now, if he wanted to, absorb all of it and know what’s inside.

And he’s so curious that Connor can’t quite say why he doesn’t want to.

But he doesn’t, even if he does keep looking at the title page, devoid of the cover art he’s become familiar with since preorders opened, letting it seep into him.

And when Connor and North get home that night, hours later, he sits awake in bed and finally scrolls to the first page. 

“Saul Wagner has died three times, even if his heart only stops beating once,” the first line reads. “It’s the first thing he and Alexander have in common - they both know what it is, to die, even if it happens in different ways. 

And they both know what it is to come back.”

Connor tucks himself under his covers and curls up on his side, thinking without trying to of all the nights he laid like this between Hank and Sumo, of how warm he was, how he can feel it even now.

He remembers, and he misses them without meaning or wanting to, because it would be so much easier if he didn’t, and he reads until morning.

~~

When North finds him exactly like that in the morning, Connor has read the first half of Hank’s book twice. It’s a simple story, told on a small scale, about a man who has lost everything and is gifted a broken companionship android by a coworker in a sort of cruel joke.

(The point, of course, is that they’re both broken.)

The plot is just the two of them - growing together, learning each other. Hank did a good enough job writing it such that things are obscured. Androids function much differently in Hank’s fiction than they do in reality, although of course it’s plain what he was inspired by. Now that more reviews have been posted, there are plenty of predictable ones claiming the book is “pro-android drivel” and “a SJW narrative so on the nose you’ll be lucky if you don’t choke on the self-righteousness”.

Hank’s book is neither of those things, in truth. It’s pro-android, of course, but that isn’t the _point_ of it. It’s subtle, a story about healing but even more so about the ways in which someone can be broken.

It’s Hank’s story, very uniquely. His fingerprints are all over it, just as apparent as if Connor was reading a crime scene like he used to, like they used to do together.

Connor could have finished it, if he wanted to. He had the time. But he doesn’t want to, or he’s afraid to. He keeps getting held up on the fictional fight that never happened between the two of them in reality, the one that maybe would have if they both hadn’t buried it.

(“I’m a mess,” Saul says to Alexander in that tense encounter. “I’m a mess, and I know you see that, but you also see the algorithms and equations that hold everything together, and so you think everything is fated, or something. That if we both loved each other, that’s enough. We’re inevitable. And I’m trying to be inevitable for you, but I’m not a happy ending. I’m just falling apart, and I’ll take you apart with me.”)

That hurts. It hurts because it sounds like what Hank didn’t or couldn’t say to him, and because of what follows - because instead of the calm conversation that happened in Hank’s kitchen as both of them swallowed their pain down, instead of them trying to hold themselves together in what small way they can at the end of it, instead they fall apart. Alexander says things to Saul in anger that Connor isn’t sure he ever would, and he’s offended by it, at least the first time he reads it.

The second time, he realizes that Alexander isn’t him. He’s not even him. Alexander has far more to do with Saul’s fears, with Hank’s, a mirror reflecting them back and a light illuminating them, than any sort of characterization of Connor at all.

Connor doesn’t read beyond that part of the book, Saul and Alexander angry, hurt, broken, because he doesn’t see how they come back from it.

And if Hank chose to write an ending in which there’s no hope for them, Connor isn’t sure he has the stomach for it.

So he avoids it, rereads the beginning again, dwells on all the little pieces of them that were good.

He sees those pieces here and there, coloring Hank’s writing. And Hank writes those moments so gently and tenderly that Connor would be happy to live in them...especially if this story ends in the same way their reality did.

Connor thinks about calling Hank to ask him about the ending he wrote, but instead, he just gets ready for work.

It takes him a week before he finally picks the book up again to scroll down past where he’s been, into the parts of their story he can’t predict because he has no idea how Hank sees them.

And what Connor finds is, admittedly, not what he expects.

What he finds is that Saul and Alexander are okay - that saying the shit that hurts isn’t their breaking point but instead the first step they take away from the precipice, hand in hand, together, that they’re stronger for having acknowledged the places they’re weak.

And when Connor gets there, the ending of Hank’s book is transcendent - it follows the rest of Saul’s years, the rest of his healing from losing his wife and his son (Connor’s influence is obscured beyond recognition to the casual eye, but the other influences from Hank’s personal life are plainly clear still).

Those are the three deaths Hank wrote about in his opening lines, and he returns to them later, writes that loving someone means you’ll die twice - once when your life ends, and once when you lose them.

(Connor thinks he’s died, too.)

Hank writes about Saul’s death, too, which is something Connor never let himself think about when they were together and something that maybe came easy to Hank after years of self-destructive behavior. The world Hank is writing about is different from theirs, with options for preservation - nothing that has been made publicly available yet, but technology that Alexander is able to recreate and rebuild. It takes him years to craft the digital afterlife he offers to Saul in the last chapter, one sweeping, quiet moment between the two of them. He started researching it only months after the two of them met, many years before.

They talk about what Saul wants, what Alexander wants, and in the end, they go, together, to the place Alexander made for the two of them.

Saul asks if Alexander will get tired of him after an eternity when they wake there, and that’s where the story ends. It’s peaceful, and clever, the way Hank lets the reader sit with Saul’s worst fear, the one he’s wrestled with for the duration of the novel - is he enough for Alexander, for now, and for forever?

The reader has to decide, and there will be different interpretations, but they’ll be wrong, because Connor knows. He doesn’t know what Hank intended, of course, but he knows Saul is enough.

It takes Connor three more days after finishing the book, and two rereads, to text Hank. He doesn’t trust his voice not to fail him if he calls.

“Should I have fought with you more?” he writes.

Because at its core, that’s the difference between reality and fiction, a willingness to say the hard things.

(Connor knows how to say hard things to Hank. He did, plenty, at the start. But he didn’t like who he was at the beginning, or how they were together, and he was trying to be better.)

He thinks, involuntarily, or Saul telling Alexander that he sees everything and yet can’t see that he’s a mess, and it stings, but it’s true. He was so enamored with Hank that Hank didn’t have the space for his imperfections, and that just made them hurt worse when they inevitably showed their faces anyway.

Connor has always known that he pushed too hard.

Hank texts him back a few hours later, and Connor wonders, with an ache of loneliness, where he was and what he was doing. “Hey,” his message says. “What are you talking about?”

“I finished your book,” Connor writes back. “A few times, actually. It was incredible.”

“Oh,” Hank says. “Thanks. And I mean...I don’t know. I don’t think there’s any way to know how things could have gone differently with us, you know? We just know the way things happened didn’t work.”

“Yeah,” Connor writes back. “I guess.”

It takes Hank minutes to send his next reply, but when he does, it says, “Are we cool?”

Connor furrows his brow. “What do you mean?”

“I just mean with me writing about you.”

Connor honestly forgot until this moment that he was ever pissed about that. “Oh. Yeah,” he writes. “It was your story, not mine. I get that now.”

“I still should have told you.”

“It’s okay. I get it.”

“I’m glad you read it, Con.”

Connor blinks back saline tears and writes, “Yeah. Me too. I’m glad...I don’t know. I’m glad you wrote that ending.”

He is. More than anything, he’s glad that Hank could meditate on everything, his whole life, and come away with something so quiet, peaceful, and beautiful.

“It kind of felt inevitable, honestly,” Hank says. “I thought about it for a long time, but there wasn’t any other way the story could end. You didn’t think it was too trite?”

“I thought it was earned,” Connor writes back.

“Best review I’ve gotten,” Hank says, and Connor actually hurts somewhere behind his thirium pump, a dull ache, to know that Hank still cares what he thinks.

“Have a good night, Con,” Hank says when Connor doesn’t say anything for a while.

“Yeah,” he writes quickly. “You too. Thank you for sending it to me.”

Connor’s hard copy comes a week later, and he reads it again before he sets it on his bedside table, keeping it close.

It occurs to him at some point to look into the small tour Hank’s publisher arranged from him. He’s mostly just curious when Hank will be traveling, even though they don’t talk much and it affects him not at all.

But what he realizes as he’s on the publisher’s website is that Hank will be in D.C. in two weeks.

It actually makes sense, given that there’s considerable interest in android affairs in D.C. given the work Markus and Josh and the rest of them are doing there. It’s a good selling opportunity, and it will probably be a busy signing.

Connor wonders why Hank didn’t tell him he would be in town, but maybe he just didn’t want Connor to feel obligated, or for it to come across the wrong way. Maybe he doesn’t know for sure if Connor wants to see him, because if there’s anything Connor knows from reading Hank’s book so many times, it’s that Hank thinks so much about the ways he was afraid loving Connor would hurt him that he didn’t, and still doesn’t, always see Connor himself.

And that’s okay. It isn’t a criticism. When they were together, there was plenty Connor didn’t know about himself, too.

But Connor does want to see him. If Hank had mentioned it, he would have told him that, even if he knows why asking felt hard.

“Are you going to go?” North asks him the night before the signing at a bookstore downtown, one of the only brick and mortar locations left in the city.

Connor has been thinking about it - about what’s fair to Hank, not wanting to be a distraction, not wanting to somehow spoil a moment that should be special for him. He’s wondered if he should just try to catch him for dinner instead.

But he thinks Hank wants to see him, too. He thinks, in the same way he knows how Alexander answers Saul’s last question, that Hank is hoping Connor will be there, even without him ever mentioning it.

“Yeah,” he says to North. “I’m going.”

North smiles. “Good.”

~~

It’s been clear to Hank for as long as his publisher has been talking about a tour that he’s going to end up in Washington, DC. DC has always been on the table, and it’s always felt like a priority. He even expected it to be at the start of the tour, because his marketing managers think they’ll have a good turnout there and generate some good press to boost sales.

He just didn’t expect it to be the very first stop.

Hank doesn’t know how he feels about it, if he’s being honest. He’s conflicted about telling Connor he’ll be in town, for sure - he ultimately decides not to, not because he doesn’t want him to be, but just because...well. It feels bold, asking Connor to come to a reading for a book influenced by their relationship, a ballsy suggestion to make.

Which is not to say that he doesn’t want Connor there. He does, very much, and because Connor is the curious sort, he thinks there’s a good chance he’ll learn about Hank’s tour dates anyway.

So how Hank really feels about his first stop, he supposes, is nervous - not because of the press, or because he’s new at this, but because either way, whether Connor shows up or not, he’s going to have to reckon with it, and with what it means.

Fuck, Hank really hopes he’s going to show.

He makes the assumption as he gets dressed that Connor is going to, because it’s better to be prepared. Hank is aware that he looks healthier - he’s two years sober, and he looks much better for it. His clothes don’t hang so loosely on him anymore now that he’s put on a bit of weight, and his skin has more brightness to it. He puts on a flannel shirt and a cable knit cardigan over top of it, and he ties his hair back and tucks his reading glasses into his pocket, and he looks himself over in the mirror, and he thinks he looks good, if he’s being honest...the “might casually run into his ex-boyfriend who he still thinks about all the time” sort of good.

Hank gets to the bookstore early - there are a few people already seated, but Connor isn’t there. Hank tries to keep himself busy, even if the bookstore already has almost everything set up, because otherwise he’ll just sit there watching the door.

By the time the reading is starting, though, Hank wishes he _had_ just watched the door, because the room is packed, and he wasn’t watching carefully to see if Connor came in, and he has no idea if he’s in the crowd once they’re getting started.

The audience questions are about what Hank would expect - how did his time with the DPD working deviancy cases influence his writing (yes, of course), does he keep in touch with his android partner from that week (sometimes), what are his thoughts on the state of android affairs? It’s odd, knowing that his book is only getting this sort of attention for his role in a war that wasn’t even his, and the questions only reinforce that, but Hank has rehearsed this, and he tries to be a decent advocate as he answers them.

It’s a relief when someone finally asks him about the book itself and not his influences. “What’s the significance of the title?” the woman asks.

“Oh,” Hank says. “It’s part of what would have been the last line, but I didn’t include that part in the book. Just sort of a homage to that, I guess.”

“Alexander’s answer, you mean? You know what it is?”

“Yeah,” Hank says. “I mean, I think everyone does, because of course Alexander is going to say that he wants Saul for eternity. He probably even means it. The real question, and the one the reader has to answer, is what happens later - if they’re happy or not, and if their happiness can last forever.”

“But you know what the answer is.”

“Yeah. I do.”

Hank does his reading from the book - a small section from the second chapter - and he signs his name a hundred times, and even though the room is emptying, he still has people standing in front of him who he can’t really see around.

It’s not until the line is at its end, until he’s trying to manage his disappointment as he signs the last book for another person who isn’t isn’t who Hank wants him to be, that Hank looks up and sees Connor still sitting in the empty rows of chairs, quietly waiting.

Connor smiles when Hank meets his eyes, lifting a hand in greeting. He gets up before Hank does, coming up to the table and setting his copy of Hank’s book down in front of him. “One more?” he asks brightly, and Hank doesn’t even know how to explain what he feels, except to say that he feels impossibly light in that single moment. 

“Yeah,” he says, although he ignores the book for a moment to get up and round the table so he can pull Connor into his arms. “Jesus, come here.”

Connor folds into him, and they’ve both changed, but he still fits there so well.

“Have you been here the whole time?” Hank asks when he reluctantly lets him go.

“Yes. You didn’t tell me you were going to be in town.” Connor slips his hands into his pockets. “Kind of like you didn’t tell me about the book.”

Hank would wince, but Connor is plainly teasing, so instead he’s just thinking about how much he missed this. “Sorry,” he says, smiling. “I didn’t want you to feel obligated.”

Connor hums at that, knocking a fist into Hank’s chest. “I wanted to be here, though. Obviously.”

Yeah, Hank thinks. He guesses it is obvious.

“I’m glad you are,” he says, and he really is.

Hank fishes his pen out of his pocket and bends to sign Connor’s book - an effort that admittedly takes him longer than it should, partially because he’s trying to decide if he should write something to him beyond his signature, and partially because it’s an opportunity to steal a glance or two at him.

Connor looks nice - he’s wearing an olive sweater and dark, fitted jeans - but he always looks nice, and it’s almost impossible to tell if he spent the same amount of time in front of his mirror as Hank did this morning.

(Hank thinks maybe he did, at least a little. He doesn’t think anyone shows up to see an ex without looking nice, which is sort of flattering, and sort of sad.)

He settles on writing “For my partner,” above his signature in Connor’s book, which is neutral enough, and actually what he wanted to put as his dedication in the book until his publisher insisted that he leave it out - they thought it would be prudent not to bring any unnecessary focus to Connor, to avoid influencing the lens through which the reader experienced the book through. So Hank took that part out, and left just the dedication to Cole - “For my son, for whom I’ll die twice”, a nice little callback to the opening lines of his book, and something that feels important to say.

Still, he’s glad Connor’s book will at least have _everything_ he wanted to say.

Connor looks at the page when Hank hands the book back to him, a small smile on his face as he touches Hank’s words.

“Hey,” Hank says, rubbing the back of his neck, “I had an early morning, and I think they have a coffee shop in here. Do you maybe want to come with me while I grab something?”

Connor tucks the book under his arm. “Sure.”

“Cool,” Hank says. He’s trying too hard to press an easy confidence into his voice, he thinks, but it’s hard, harder than he thought it would be. He’s talked to Connor in the last two years, obviously, but seeing him is different.

Connor doesn’t say anything about it, though, just falls into step at Hank’s side as Hank hitches his satchel over his shoulder. “Where are you staying?” he asks.

“Over on 33rd.”

“The Hudson?” Connor asks, letting out a low whistle when Hank nods. “Fancy. They must think your book is going to do well.”

Connor sounds a little proud, and Hank likes that he does. “Preorders were pretty strong,” he says, shrugging, “but I mean...that’s just because of who I am. People just want to know what they’re going to be able to glean about that week in 2038 from me, you know?”

“I don’t know. Advance reviews were good, and it’s plainly fiction,” Connor says. “You might just have to accept that you wrote a good book, and plenty of people are buying it because it’s good.”

Hank gives him a dim smile. “Yeah. I know.”

He orders when they get to the cafe, and once his drink is in hand, the two of them stand there for a moment, awkwardly, before Connor says, “Do you have to get back or anything?”

“Oh. No. I’m done for the day.”

Connor tilts his head. “Then do you want to sit down?”

Hank does. He was just trying to work up the nerve to ask, because it would have been a disappointment if Connor had other plans.

“Yeah,” he says, relieved. “Sure.”

It’s awkward at first, the way it always is when relearning someone you once knew as well as yourself. There are empty spaces to fill in, basic things that neither of them know, even if it’s uncomfortable to ask and admit that they don’t.

But the thing about Connor is that he’s always slotted into Hank’s life easily, even at their very worst moments. They understand each other, and it doesn’t take much effort before things feel a little more familiar. Connor tells Hank about their work in DC, about how Markus and Josh primarily manages their advocacy efforts and he manages their volunteer efforts, and about living with North, and Hank tells him about...well, most of his last two years has been writing his book, but he tells him about Jeff, and about a few of the friends he still has from rehab, and about his recovery process since then.

Hank doesn’t look at his phone once, until he realizes the cafe staff are shutting things down and cleaning up behind the counter. “Shit,” he says when he looks at his watch. “We’ve been here for hours. They’re closing in a few minutes.”

Connor knows that, of course. Connor always knows what time it is. He tilts his head the way he does and says, “Sorry. I should have said something earlier.”

“No, it’s okay,” Hank says quickly. “I’m, um...you can say no if you need to get home, but I need dinner, if you want to come?”

He needs dinner...and it feels like there’s still more to say.

Hank’s stomach does an anxious flip, but it helps that Connor hardly hesitates, that the only sign he’s considering the request at all is the single yellow spin of his LED.

“Okay,” he says. “I know a few places you might like.”

“Yeah?”

“Depends. Is Chicken Feed still your favorite restaurant?”

Hank snorts at that. “Connor, please. It would take more than two years for that to change.”

Connor smiles. “Then yeah. I think I know a few places. We can take the subway, if you want...”

“Oh, I have a rental car, if you don’t mind riding with me.”

Connor doesn’t protest, so that’s what they do, even if it does feel a little strange, driving with Connor in the passenger seat, like they used to. And maybe Connor is thinking something similar, because Hank has to clear his throat after he starts the car and say, “Where am I going?” to remind him that he’s playing tour guide.

“Oh,” Connor says, leaning over the console and putting an address into the autonomous navigation system. “Sorry.”

The car pulls itself out of the bookstore lot, and Hank says, “It’s okay.”

Connor looks around the car as they turn onto the street. “What happened to never driving autonomous cars?”

“Natural selection, mostly. It’s getting harder and harder to find manual ones, especially for rentals. And...I don’t know. I guess the accident feels less present these days. Like something I’ve let go of instead of something I’m holding on to, you know?”

“I get it,” Connor says. “I have some things like that, too.”

Hank doesn’t ask, mostly because he doesn’t want to pry, but he would still like to know. “So,” he says instead, clearing his throat. “Where are we going?”

The corner of Connor’s mouth lifts in a smile. “It’s a surprise.”

Hank doesn’t have to wait long. Fifteen minutes later, they pull into a parking lot for a gastropub called Fire & Wheat, in the cellar of some ritzy lodge. “Best burgers in DC,” Connor says when Hank looks at him, winking before he gets out of the car.

Hank follows after them. “How do you know they’re the best?” he asks, teasing, elbowing Connor along with the joke, because of course Connor can’t eat.

Connor smiles. “Amanda says they are. She’s my gauge for human food.”

“Do you two spend much time together outside work?” Hank asks. He wonders if that’s odd for Connor, being around her after the way CyberLife designed the AI in his head, or if it’s healing instead.

“Yeah,” Connor says. “She and Chloe are getting married in a few weeks, once the bill legalizing android marriage is finalized. It’s not official yet, but we have the votes, unless someone fucks us. We’re all in the wedding.”

It’s a nice thought, honestly, not only that Connor has his little family, but that Amanda has been there for him in a way Hank knows he badly needed. “That’s really nice,” he says, holding the door for him when they reach it, and Connor smiles.

“Yeah. We’re looking forward to it.”

They’re seated after a short wait, and Connor surprises Hank by ordering something to drink from the bar when the waiter comes around. “Since when can you drink?” Hank asks.

“Amanda...well. She has a considerable amount of money, and it’s been important to her that we have the experiences we want, so she’s financed a number of upgrades for us.” Connor thanks the waiter when he sets a glass of wine in front of him, taking a sip before he adds, “And she’s very interested in that sort of thing, biocomponent upgrades and things like that, so that’s part of it, too.”

“How long did it take her to convince you to accept the generosity?” Hank asks wryly.

Connor looks amused, too. “A while. But I’m glad I did. Sometimes you don’t know what you’re missing out on until you’ve experienced it yourself.”

“Yeah,” Hank says. “I’m sure that’s true.”

Hank does order a burger, and it’s ridiculously good, and Connor looks pleased when he tells him so after his first bite.

Whatever veil was between them before is torn down, it seems, because they talk about the last two years without much abandon now. Hank doesn’t know how he ends up telling Connor about Peter, the boyfriend who lived with him for two months last year, but he does, and Connor listens to all of it before he says, “What went wrong?”

Honestly, what went wrong was that Peter said it felt like living with Connor’s ghost, that Connor was still so palpably present in Hank’s house that he didn’t feel like there was room for him...and that was even without ever reading a single draft of Hank’s book.

Hank isn’t sure how to tell Connor that, though. “I don’t know,” he says instead. “I guess we just weren’t right for each other, in the end.”

Connor considers that, taking a sip of his drink. “That’s fair,” he says. “I haven’t been right for people, either.” He tilts his head, looking Hank over. “You never answered my question.”

“What question?”

Connor smiles dimly. “About whether I should have fought with you more.”

Weird, Hank thinks, how a question about their breakup feels like flirting. He would think he’s reading things wrong, but Connor has always been intentional, and he’s always known exactly what he’s instilling into a conversation.

“What do you think?” Hank asks. He’s glad the room is dark - maybe it prevents Connor from seeing his cheeks flush.

Connor tilts his head and looks at Hank like he’s reading him before he says, “I think I should have told you that you were being fucking fragile about the lingerie I bought you.”

“Yeah,” Hank says, “you should have.” It wasn’t the lingerie that made him break up with Connor, but it _was_ that moment of failing him that made him realize he couldn’t fail him again. He deserved for Connor to be pissed at him, because it was more than just the lingerie - it was Hank never knowing how to give Connor the same vulnerability that Connor always so willingly gave him, that he never knew how to let Connor love him the way he wanted to.

Connor gives him a small smile. “Then I’m sorry I didn’t.”

“It’s okay,” Hank says quickly. “That shit’s still on me.”

Connor traces a finger around the stem of his wine glass, thoughtful. “Some of it’s on me,” he says softly.

And even still, even now, after 82,536 words of self-reflection that he’s sat with for two years, even when Hank knows the reasons they didn’t work in 2038 can be found in both of them, it’s still his first instinct to defend Connor from himself. “Hey...” he starts. “Don’t say that. It isn’t...”

“It is,” Connor says, lifting his eyes to meet Hank’s. “I knew you weren’t ready to let me want you yet, but I didn’t know how not to. The timing wasn’t right, but I tried to force it to be anyway. So...some of it is on me.” Connor shrugs, a small smile on his face. “Impulsivity and impatience have always been vices of mine.”

Hank returns his smile. “Eh,” he says, “they have, but...I liked that about you.”

Connor’s grin broadens, a teasing glint in his eye. “I liked your general boorishness.”

Hank snorts around the drink of water he’s taking, and Connor laughs, too. And they look at each other, isolated in that single moment, and Hank sees in Connor not what was, but what could be.

He wonders if Connor sees anything near the same.

“Did you know?” Connor asks, oblivious to Hank’s thoughts. “That I was going to be there today?”

“No,” Hank says. “I can’t run your fancy preconstructions and come up with probabilities or anything like that. But, I mean...I hoped you would be. I thought maybe you would be.”

Hope feels more important than knowing, at least in this moment.

Hank orders dessert when the time comes, because he’s frankly just trying to buy himself time. He’s all too aware that he doesn’t have much longer to figure out what he’s going to say to Connor when they part ways tonight, how he can possibly suggest that they could see each other again. He isn’t leaving town until the day after tomorrow, so that’s one thing, but after that...they live halfway across the country from each other, which comes with its own challenges. And they aren’t insurmountable, no, but working around the distance would mean a certain level of commitment from both of them out of the gate that Hank has no idea how to request.

This was part of why he was scared to see Connor again, part of why he _almost_ hoped he wouldn’t come to the signing. Hank has suspected a number of things over the years, about himself, about Connor, about the way they fit together, but now he knows every last one of them to be true.

And that means he has to do something now, tonight...or he has to live with it.

When the waiter brings the bill to the table, Connor takes it before Hank can, authorizing his card even as Hank says, “I have a per diem from my publisher, you know.”

“I’m sure you do,” Connor says, but that doesn’t stop him from signing on the datapad anyway instead of canceling the transaction. “But I don’t want your publisher to buy me dinner. I want to buy you dinner.”

Hank understands why Connor thinks there’s a difference, because of course there is - it colors the evening in an entirely different way.

They walk to Hank’s car together, and they sit inside for a long moment, even after Hank starts the engine, before Hank clears his throat and says, “Can I drive you home?”

“The subway is closer.”

“Yeah, but...I want to.”

Hank doesn’t have Connor’s address, and Connor doesn’t give it to him. He just sits there, looking at his hands in his lap, and says, “I’ve been thinking a lot about the nature of open endings since I read your book.”

Hank shifts in his seat to look at him. “Yeah?”

Connor nods. “About how sometimes things look one way, but they can be something else. And about how things keep going after the story ends.” He glances over at Hank, shrugging. “It makes everything seem less final when you think of it like that.”

“Yeah,” Hank says softly. “I get it.”

Connor gives him a small, sad smile. “What are we doing here, exactly?”

“I don’t know,” Hank admits, even if he thinks he does, because he doesn’t have the guts to say it.

Connor taps the console of Hank’s car, where the time - 10:13 PM - is displayed. “We’ve been putting off parting ways for six hours now.”

“Long time,” Hank says wryly. “I saw this graphic on MySpace or some shit when I was a teenager - it was this little stick figure running in place while another one watched, and he said something about how if he created enough resistance against the earth’s rotation, maybe he could buy the two of them another moment or two together.”

“That’s very silly, and impossible,” Connor says primly.

“Yeah. Kind of feels like what we’re doing, though.”

Connor considers it a moment and then says, “I guess it does.” He sighs, fussing with his hands in his lap. “I don’t want to hurt you again.”

“You never did.”

“I don’t want to get hurt, either.”

Hank looks at him, searching his face even though Connor is looking at his hands. “I don’t want to hurt you.” He reaches for Connor’s arm, grasping him reassuringly. “There’s a nice bar back at the hotel. Do you maybe want to come back there instead, and we can talk...”

Hank doesn’t get the rest of it out, because Connor moves suddenly enough to startle the words out of his mouth, leaning over the center console and catching a hand in Hank’s hair and kissing him.

And that’s...well. Hank still thinks they should talk, but he also thinks it’s much easier for both him and Connor to just act instead.

And there are some things that can’t be said with words - after years of poring over a novel, trying to make it its best, Hank would know. 

There are some things he can only say by shrugging out of his seatbelt, getting an arm around Connor and kissing him back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is finished, so I'll aim to post another chapter every week or two. ❤️
> 
> I'm on [Twitter](http://twitter.com/Jolli_Bean) and [Tumblr.](http://jolli-bean.tumblr.com) Come chat with me!


	2. just distance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hank thinks about what Connor said, about not wanting to say goodbye when Hank leaves D.C. for the next stop on his tour, and he thinks he knows an alternative he could offer him, if Connor is willing.
> 
> And he hopes he is. Hank thinks they both want more time.

“Hank,” Connor whispers against Hank's mouth before he kisses him again, hurried and desperate, “tell me this is okay.”

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Hank says quickly, and Connor whines softly into his mouth. Hank squeezes the back of his neck and rubs a thumb over his cheek. “Hey,” he says, voice soft, “it’s late. We should...”

Connor leans away from him only as far as he needs to in order to put the address for Hank’s hotel into the autonomous navigation system. The moment the car pulls out of the parking space, Connor kisses Hank again, and while he does, he reaches out to hit the button that turns their seats around so he can push himself into Hank’s lap.

All autonomous cars have a function that amounts to the most obnoxious fucking sound when they’re in gear and passenger seatbelts aren’t fastened, designed as annoying as possible to discourage people from doing exactly what Hank and Connor are doing. But Connor hisses, “Fuck, _shut up_ ,” in frustration and reaches out to interface with the console, doing something to disable it.

“Fried the circuit,” he says when he turns back to Hank and sees the question on his face, running his fingers over his beard and kissing him again.

“Jesus, you know this is a rental, right?”

Connor is plainly amused. “They won’t know until well after you’ve returned it.” He puts his hands on Hank’s shoulders and smooths them over his chest, looking at them there like he’s trying to understand how he got here. “Hi,” he says, voice soft and small when he meets Hank’s eyes again.

Hank smiles and settles an arm around Connor’s waist. “Hey, sweetheart.”

Connor looks sad and relieved all at once. “I missed you. Fuck, you have no idea...” He cuts himself off by kissing Hank again, and when Hank touches his face, there are saline tears on his cheeks.

“I know,” he whispers. “I know, baby.”

Connor makes a soft noise against him, pressing his tongue into Hank’s mouth, and Hank doesn’t know if it’s a reaction to the nickname or just the situation, but he isn’t going to complain.

It’s a long drive back to the hotel. The navigation system cuts through the low music on the radio to tell them that they’re thirty minutes away from the other side of the city, and Connor doesn’t seem to mind that at all, rolling his hips against Hank’s like he’s trying to torture him. Connor’s sweater is hitched up from Hank holding him and trying to pull him closer, and when Hank puts his hand on his waist again, he touches inches of warm, bare skin. It melts away under the heat of his fingers a moment later, yielding the bare white plastic underneath, and Hank still thinks that’s the hottest fucking thing...

“You know making out in a moving vehicle is illegal,” Connor says primly. He’s teasing, of course, because he’s unbuttoning Hank’s cardigan and pushing it from his shoulders as he says it.

“Good thing neither of us are cops anymore,” Hank says, and Connor grins at that, kissing Hank again before he reaches for Hank’s hand and brings it between his legs. An odd move, Hank thinks, considering stimulation there doesn’t do anything for him - Hank would know, because they tried - until he realizes that Connor is showing him something else.

Hank doesn’t ask questions. It’s been two years, and Connor has already mentioned upgrades and new experiences, but it _is_ his turn to have a moan pulled almost involuntarily out of him.

Sex with Connor was never the problem with their relationship, despite their differences. It was great. Connor was incredible, always so open about it, and Hank loved exploring him, the two of them figuring out what worked for him together. But there were also always certain other things that Hank has loved doing for his previous partners that there wasn’t any equivalent of with Connor. It didn’t affect their relationship or their sex life at all, but it was always a persistent wish in the back of Hank’s mind, a “Wouldn’t that be nice if we could?” sort of thought, even if things were also okay the way they were.

Connor watches Hank’s face as Hank touches him with a pleased, almost smug expression, and that’s exactly the thing that has Hank shifting in his seat, getting up and pushing Connor into the backseat behind them. He follows after him and kisses him before he kneels in front of him, and he’s going to ask if this is okay, except that Connor is already unfastening his belt and struggling to push his jeans from his hips.

“This is very illegal,” Connor says, breathless, at the same time he reaches out to lower the tint on the windows.

“You’ve said,” Hank says, kissing him messily and then sinking back onto his heels to push Connor’s sweater up and nip at the line of his hip above the waistband of his briefs.

Life has a funny fucking way sometimes, for the two of them to end up here, but as Hank looks up and meets Connor’s eyes, all soft heat and gentle affection, he really isn’t going to complain.

Hank will admit that he isn't exactly sure what Connor is after here, whether he's looking for the two of them to try again, and everything complicated and messy that will come with it, or whether he's just looking for closure now that he's in a different, more established place than the one he was in when they parted way two years ago. And he knows they should talk about it, he really does, but he also doesn't think it matters, because he meant it when he said he didn't want to hurt Connor. If all Connor wants is a tidier end to the two of them, an opportunity to more neatly close the door, then Hank will give that to him without question. 

And if he wants a new start, even if it will never be an entirely fresh one, then Hank is with him on that, too.

So...it matters what Connor wants, but it also changes nothing about where they're going tonight. And Hank wants whatever Connor is offering, and in some ways he's afraid that talking about it now might sour whatever tentative new balance they've struck between them and remove the opportunity for either end.

Old habits die hard - Hank isn't a great talker. He's better these days than he used to be, but he told his publisher recently that if he knew how to talk about everything plaguing him with everyone who needed to hear it, he never would have written a book, so...at least he's self-aware, if nothing else. And at least he has this, Hank thinks as he pushes Connor's sweater up another inch to kiss the plane of his stomach, another opportunity to tell Connor exactly how much he means to him. That counts for something.

He reaches for the waistband of Connor's briefs, and Connor moves immediately to help him, lifting his hips up so Hank can pull them down without a struggle. He can't see as well as he'd like to in the dark, especially with the window tint turned up so high, but the occasional passing streetlamp helps to illuminate the cabin of the car, and Connor, in a peaceful, dim sort of light.

"Fuck, baby," Hank says, reaching for Connor's cock where it's resting against his thigh and wrapping a hand around it. It feels real, is Hank's first thought, which Connor would chide him for - when they were dating, Connor would correct him all the time for saying "real" when what he meant was "human", because of course there are many different ways to be real, and everything about Connor is.

It feels _human_ , Hank thinks, correcting himself even though Connor can't hear him, and what feels even better is the way Connor shifts under him, the way he's biting his lip in response when Hank glances up at him.

The cabin is dark as they pass between streetlamps, but Hank still kisses the freckle he knows is there on the inside of Connor's thigh before he takes him in his mouth.

"Fuck," Connor breathes, reaching above his head to grasp for the top of the passenger seat, arching his back and laying his head back so Hank can look up and see the pale column of his throat, and Hank can't help the way he smiles around him.

There are ways in which Connor is still distinctly inhuman, despite how good a replica the biocomponent is, and some of them are even familiar - the bead of fluid Hank tastes on his tongue is the same mineral and thirium compound that makes up Connor’s saliva, the same taste of nothingness, like saline, that comes with kissing him. 

It’s nice, that familiarity, even as Hank learns so much else that’s new - that Connor’s cock is the perfect size to fit in his mouth, that he can take him almost all the way down and the head of Connor’s cock will only just hit Hank’s throat, which Hank loves, and that it’s modestly sized enough to suit Connor’s lean frame but still just large enough to give Hank that pleasant ache in his jaw.

And he fucking adores the way Connor reacts to it all, too, that he can look up and see the line of Connor’s body bowed in a pretty arch, his knuckles white where he’s grasping the back of the seat as the light runs over him. His synthskin recedes under Hank’s fingers where Hank is holding his waist, and he’s tentative, both about slipping his fingers into Hank’s hair, messing it up even more than it already is, and gently rocking his hips up into Hank’s mouth.

Hank reaches for Connor’s wrist and squeezes - the only way he can say, “Come on, baby,” with his mouth full - but Connor still gets the message, tightening his fingers in Hank’s hair and giving it a curious tug.

Hank groans around him, and Connor whines at the sensation that sends through him, and when he does it again, harder this time, he’s looking down at Hank when Hank looks up at him, his sweater rumpled, his hair falling over his face, a beautiful, disheveled mess that Hank has made him into.

It’s difficult with Connors’s jeans still around his thighs, but Hank does manage to get Connor’s left leg over his shoulder, to slip an arm under his back and brace the other over his belly, bracketing him in before he hollows his cheeks and stops teasing.

It doesn’t take long at all, not after that. Connor makes the sweetest noises, and he gets louder and far less discriminating about them, and when Hank feels the muscles under his hand tighten, Connor reaches for him, winding their fingers together.

He tastes like nothing when he comes in Hank’s mouth, down his throat, but Hank can feel every ounce of tension in his body, and he can feel it slipping away from him as he traces circles in Connor’s skin and gently lowers his thigh from his shoulder.

Eventually he lets Connor’s cock slip from his mouth, too, but that’s only because he wants to kiss him - otherwise, he wouldn’t be in any hurry at all.

Connor has his head leaned back against the seat when Hank looks up at him, his eyes closed and his LED cycling yellow. Hank watches the movement of his chest as he catches his breath for a moment, and then he gets up, ignoring the ache in his knees or maybe relishing it a bit, and joins Connor on the seat.

He helps Connor rearrange himself, pulling his jeans up around his hips and his sweater back into place, and then he wraps an arm around his shoulders and kisses him.

Connor smiles when they part, leaning his forehead against Hank’s. “I missed you tasting like me,” he says softly. He still sounds winded, a static grain in his voice. “Fuck,” he adds, and Hank agrees.

“Come here,” Hank says, and he just means for Connor to put his head on his shoulder, but Connor hums happily as he twists and climbs back into Hank’s lap. He’s less insistent about it now, without any hurry, except when he rocks himself down into Hank’s erection - a very intentional effort, if his self-satisfied little smile every time is any indication.

They’re only a few minutes away from Hank’s hotel, which is the only thing stopping Connor from taking him apart in his usual, calculating way, Hank suspects.

He’s probably still a goner, though...in almost every way possible.

~~

It’s a blur, getting up to Hank’s room once they arrive at the hotel - even for Connor, who’s always hyper-aware of himself and his surroundings. It’s staying in the car for several minutes after it’s parked in the garage because they don’t seem to know how to part, and holding hands in the lobby like they used to. It’s pressing Hank into the wall the second the elevator doors close, because it’s late and they’re alone, and not sparing a single thought for the security cameras watching them, and Hank backing him out of the elevator without parting from Connor’s mouth when the bell dings for their floor.

It’s not a single moment wasted, which is exactly what Connor wants, especially when they’re working with borrowed time. Hank hasn’t mentioned it, but he knows Hank’s tour schedule - Hank will still be in town tomorrow, but he’ll be moving on to Philadelphia the day after, and so they only have so much time to reorient themselves, to become...whatever it is they’re in the process of becoming. And maybe that’s nothing, but Connor thinks maybe it could be something, too...

Hank is in better shape than he used to be, and has maybe been working out a little, his body a little fuller than it was before - Connor noticed earlier, but he knows it for sure when Hank swipes his card to unlock the door and then immediately grasps Connor by the backs of his thighs, hoisting him up and pressing him back against the wall in the entryway as Connor wraps his legs around his waist and makes a pleased electrical sound in the back of his throat that almost sounds like a purr.

He maps the room while he kisses Hank - the bathroom door is open, and he notes a large tub that he’d like to make use of later, because he’s always loved bathing with Hank...for the way Hank looks with his hair damp around his shoulders, nipples pebbled and skin wet, and for the fact that it’s always a nice opportunity to remind Hank how useful it is that he isn’t human and doesn’t have to breathe, that he can slip under the water and stay there for...well, as long as it takes.

Later, though...when Hank is tired, when they’ve both slowed down.

For now, Connor puts his hand on Hank’s face and says, “Do you want to fuck me?”

“Yeah,” Hank breathes, nodding against him and kissing him messily.

Connor pulls his own sweater over his head, with some effort, while Hank is still holding him, and he groans, dropping his head back against the wall and threading his fingers in Hank’s hair when Hank immediately bends forward to take one of Connor’s nipples between his lips.

“Hank,” Connor whines, impatient, “ _come on._ ”

Hank smirks against his skin, and he laughs outright when Connor tugs on his hair and squirms in his grasp. He takes his time for another moment, but then he lets Connor slip back to the ground - and Connor immediately goes for the buttons of Hank’s shirt, unfastening them at record speed and making Hank chuckle again. He shrugs out of his shirt, and his cologne fills Connor’s sensors like a comfort - it’s still the same as it used to be.

Connor tries to reach for him, but Hank catches him by the forearm and turns him towards the bed, giving him a swat on the ass.

“Thought you were so impatient,” he says in Connor’s ear. “After you, baby.”

The confidence actually isn’t new - Hank is a physical person, and he’s always been more inclined towards action than talking, and so he’s always sort of come to life in the bedroom, even when they were first together. The problem, of course, was that for all his confidence, Hank was never willing to be vulnerable. He would take care of Connor and focus on him and give and give and _give_ to him if Connor let him, but when Connor wanted to offer the same, Hank didn’t know how to accept that.

And Connor finds himself wondering how much that’s changed, if it has. He thinks it needs to if...if this is going to be anything other than another loving goodbye.

So he’ll push. Just a little bit. But...later. He’ll do it later, because right now Connor can only see what’s bright and beautiful between them, and he doesn’t want to spoil his own hope.

Connor does turn back to kiss Hank one more time before he starts towards the bed, and he makes a show of kicking out of his shoes and working his jeans over his hips as he goes.

By the time he lies back on the mattress, he’s naked against the plush bedding, turning his head to the side to look at Hank across the room with a glint of a challenge in his eye.

“Come on, then,” he says, reaching down to stroke himself while Hank watches.

It doesn’t last long - Hank is on him in a moment, pressing a hand against the inside of Connor’s thigh to part his legs where they’re hanging over the edge of the bed and stand between them, and Connor grins, reaching for him and pulling Hank down to kiss him.

“Get these off,” he says against Hank’s mouth, tugging at the waistband of his jeans.

“Bossy,” Hank says, but Connor knows he likes him that way.

It’s weird, Connor thinks, kissing Hank like this again, being vulnerable with him and not knowing how to express what he’s feeling in words, because of course there are no easy words for “I loved you before and I think I could again if you can meet me halfway.” The human language doesn’t have any good words for in between emotions, for places of transition and suspended states of being. If Connor could show Hank instead, he would, and the synthskin peels back on his palm the smallest bit in response to the thought.

He’s left with one option, which is to work himself back further onto the bed so he has room to pull Hank in beside him. Hank still has his boxers on, so Connor grabs him by the waistband and tugs him onto the covers, and then immediately drags them down, because they’re in his way.

“Fuck,” Hank says when Connor pushes him back and moves to take him in his mouth - his saliva is a thicker thirium based solution, so he tells himself it’s for the practical purpose of slicking him up, but maybe he just missed the way Hank tastes, too, even if he never really forgot, either.

When they were together before, before Connor had any sexual upgrades and he was still exploring what the body he was created with was capable of, he and Hank would always lie with Hank at his back when they were together. Hank would slick the insides of Connor’s thighs and fuck between them while he removed Connor’s regulator to reach into his chest - one of the earliest methods Connor had discovered that worked for his own sexual release, even if Connor hasn’t trusted anyone enough to let them do that since.

It’s odd - or maybe it isn’t; maybe it’s just what’s natural - that without talking about it, they slot back together exactly like that. “Are you good?” Hank asks behind him, squeezing Connor’s hip and kissing his jaw.

Connor turns his head to catch his mouth, nodding as he kisses him. “I’m good, just fuck me,” he whispers against him.

Hank touches the rim of his regulator. “Do you still like this?”

“Yeah,” Connor breathes - maybe too quickly and too desperately, but he does enjoy it, and it’s been a while, and it’s not the same when he does it himself...although he has tried.

Hank kisses the hinge of his jaw again as he presses his cock into his hole, and he catches Connor’s moan with his mouth when he does. Connor winds their fingers together, squeezing hard and whispering, “Fuck, Hank...” when Hank pulls back and rocks into him again.

“Come here,” Hank says, pulling Connor back against him so he’s pressed tight against his chest. He slips an arm under Connor’s neck to wrap around his shoulders and works Connor’s regulator loose with the other hand.

Being without a regulator is like a human holding their breath - Connor can’t live without it, but for short periods of time, the lack of it heightens his awareness of everything around him, every sensation. And Hank’s hand is warm, and Connor can feel every whorl of his fingerprints against the inside of his chassis, and it becomes apparent after just a moment that Hank still knows exactly how to get him there like this, even if the rest of it is new.

Connor briefly wonders if he’s going to overstimulate himself, because having someone inside him at two points is a lot, and not something he’s exactly tried before.

“I might pass out,” he says, and Hank has taken him offline enough times that Connor doesn’t have to explain what he means or why it’s okay - good, even.

Hank just smiles when he kisses Connor’s shoulder, rocking into him and twisting a wire. “Yeah?”

“Fuck,” Connor says through gritted teeth. “Yeah. You feel so good.”

It’s so much to take in, the way Hank feels inside him - in the ways he’s familiar with, and the ones he isn’t. There’s a lot to focus on. Connor can feel Hank’s breath on his skin when Hank says, “So do you, baby.”

Connor knows that he can get like this - strung thin along the edge, where every little touch ignites his sensors and makes tears well in his eyes, because he’s more sensitive than any human, more sensitive than most androids, by design. It’s the first time in a very long time that he’s let anyone take him there, though - it takes trust for Connor to hand himself over like this, and he thought that came easy to him, since it was so easy with Hank.

But it doesn’t. Connor has spent so much time preferring to be in control, to keep any of his own vulnerability in check, and it’s only in this moment, when it’s so _easy_ to let Hank in again, that Connor realizes maybe the two of them have that in common, too.

It scares Connor just a bit, but he still reaches for Hank’s free hand and winds their fingers together. “I loved you before and I could again,” Connor is trying to tell him as Hank rolls his hips into his and his finger brushes Connor’s heart, the words that would feel like too much too soon out loud, “and maybe I already do.”

Connor has the sheets fisted in his other hand, but he lets them go long enough to reach behind him and bury his hand in Hank’s hair instead - Hank used to like when Connor pulled his hair, and still does if their car ride here is any indication. But Connor is mostly just trying to ground himself, to anchor himself to Hank at another point.

Hank groans at that, the noise reverberating in Connor’s auditory processors, and he kisses Connor’s shoulder and nips at his ear when Connor arches against him, rolling his hips back to meet Hank on a deep thrust that jostles the bundle of pleasure sensors inside him. Connor’s breath comes out in a gasp, and his fingers tighten in Hank’s hair, and his whole body is alight, LED cycling rapidly between red and yellow, synthskin peeling back and glitching out on his thigh and his chest and his neck. He can feel Hank’s sweat against his back, hear from his rough breaths that he’s just as ruined...

Maybe not _just_ as ruined, but that’s only because what’s happening to Connor, the complete overstimulation of his sensors, isn’t something he was ever designed for. His biocomponents are made delicate for analysis, and not to be overloaded like this, and the outright defiance of his purpose, the blatant misuse of himself, is part of what feels so good, even if Connor has only ever trusted Hank with it.

It’s by sheer force of will that Connor staves off his own overload until Hank comes, and a blessing that Hank is right there on the edge with him. Connor can feel Hank’s rhythm faltering and hear it in his breathing, so he twists around far enough that he can kiss him messily, giving his hair another tug.

Hank pulls out before he comes, which Connor is not cognizant enough to verbally protest with Hank’s fingers as deep in his chest cavity as they are - although he would certainly protest it if he could. Instead, all he can do is let out a low whine and turn his head to bite Hank’s arm where it’s wound under his neck and around his shoulders.

“Fuck,” Hank says, amused and breathless. “Don’t be mouthy, Jesus...”

He presses down a little harder against Connor’s thirium pump, making him go rigid, and then fits his cock between Connor’s thighs like he used to. Connor looks down through glitching vision to watch his own cock, flushed and untouched and leaking, and Hank’s moving underneath in the two thrusts it takes for Hank to come between his thighs and over his hip, panting as he holds Connor against him and kisses his shoulder.

He takes Connor’s heart in his hand, and it pulses there once before Connor gives in to the mandatory reset warnings flaring in the corners of his vision. He comes as he shuts down, and he feels Hank kiss his jaw and breathe, “You’re so fucking incredible,” and that’s the last of it before everything goes dark.

When Connor wakes up, five minutes and thirty-six seconds later, he isn’t in bed anymore. He’s in the bathroom, in warm water, leaned back against Hank’s chest while Hank runs a washcloth over him.

“Hey,” Hank says, kissing Connor’s LED when it cycles blue as Connor blinks rapidly, adjusting his ocular settings. “You’re okay. We’re just getting you cleaned up a little bit.”

Connor is always tense when he comes back online, a programmed response to losing time, but he immediately sinks back against Hank, sighing and tucking his forehead into the crook of his neck.

Hank has only just gotten him into the bath - Connor can still see the traces of slight thirium spillage on his chest and semen, his own and Hank’s, over his thighs and belly, not yet worn away by the water. Connor imagines Hank carrying him in here and he turns enough that he can put a hand on his face and kiss him.

“Hi,” Connor says when they part, and Hank smiles, leaning his forehead against Connor’s.

“You were out for a while.”

It’s true - five minutes is a long time. One or two was the average when they were together before and this was more commonplace between them.

“I’m out of practice,” Connor says softly.

Hank doesn’t ask about that, and Connor is glad not to have to clarify, but Hank still kisses his hair like he knows anyway - that this is special, and that it means something.

They’re quiet for a long time, long enough for Connor to appropriately get his wits about him and lean forward to turn the jets on in the tub, because he’d like to stay for a while. “What?” he asks when Hank chuckles at him as he settles back against his chest. “I’ve never been in one before.”

Hank wraps both arms around him and kisses his cheek. “I wasn’t complaining.”

When Hank drops the used washcloth on the floor by the tub, Connor glances at it and says, with the most practical tone he can muster, “For future reference, it’s safe to come inside me.”

Connor knows exactly what he’s saying, that there’s no _need_ to say it at all if this isn’t going to happen again. It’s a vulnerable invitation carefully wrapped up in his usual prim, deadpan tone, and Hank certainly knows it, too.

When Hank is quiet, Connor clears his throat and adds, “Not that I mind you coming anywhere else, either.”

Hank snorts at that. “Thought maybe you’d gotten prissy about the mess.”

“Hank, please,” Connor scoffs. “I used to process _blood_ in my _mouth_.”

“Yeah,” Hank replies, amused. “I guess you did.”

It’s easier for Hank to joke about the past than it is to address the implications about their future, Connor supposes, and he also supposes he isn’t being any more forthright about it. It’s easier to just close his eyes and lie his head back against Hank’s shoulder and exist in this moment, especially when it’s such a good fucking moment, than to think about what comes after...especially when what comes after will be so much more challenging than this. And that isn’t a bad thing, necessarily, but they do have a lot to sort through, whereas this came back to them like second nature.

“Kind of a shame,” Hank says, and Connor twists enough to glance at him out of the corner of his eye, raising an eyebrow in question. Hank shrugs and says, “That we can’t just fuck our way out of our issues.”

Connor and Hank used to be on the same page about so many things, even the ones that hurt, and it’s a relief to find that they still are, that Hank’s thoughts still inexplicably mirror Connor’s own when it matters most.

“We never would have broken up,” Connor says wryly.

“No, we wouldn’t have,” Hank says. “I mean...if anyone could have sucked my depression out through my dick, it would have been you.”

That startles a laugh out of Connor that feels good - it’s nice to joke about this, he’s finding. It makes the other, far more serious conversations feel more accessible. “I did try,” he says, and Hank squeezes him a little tighter in his arms.

“I know you did, baby.”

Connor smiles. “You know I haven’t let anyone call me that since you?”

“Oh,” Hank says, surprised. “Did you decide you don’t like it? I can...”

“No,” Connor says quickly. “It just...felt like yours.”

Hank rests his cheek against Connor’s head, sighing. “You want to talk about what we’re doing here yet?”

Connor considers it, but they have all day tomorrow, and Hank has to be tired even if Connor isn’t, and he thinks it’s okay to just let this moment be what it is, to rest in his faith that he and Hank are on the same page instead of needing immediate clarification.

Connor shifts so he’s sitting on his knees facing Hank, putting a hand on his cheek and running his thumb over his skin. “What I want,” he says, “is to repay your favor from the car earlier before we get out of the bath, and then I want us to go to bed together.” Connor tilts his head, smiling. “And if it helps you to know, I’d rather figure out how to make the goodbye I’m going to have to say to you tomorrow a little less permanent...if we can. But we can talk about the rest of it, and what’s practical, tomorrow morning.”

Connor doesn’t feel practical right now, is the problem. He looks at Hank and feels like anything is possible. And that’s romantic, sure, but it’s still true, what he told Hank in the car. He doesn’t want to hurt Hank, and he doesn’t want to be hurt. 

He _needs_ to be practical - he has to be. They both do. 

Hank nods like he understands, pulling Connor into him and kissing him. “Okay,” he says softly.

The corner of Connor’s mouth lifts in a smile, and he pushes a piece of Hank’s damp hair out of his eyes. “Okay,” he whispers, and he kisses Hank on the mouth one more time before he slips under the water.

It comes back like second nature, the way Hank’s cock fits in his mouth, the way Hank likes him to move - slow at first, tongue laving over his head, before he swallows him down. And Connor knows he’s built that way, because there’s no reason for him to have a gag reflex, but he’s never stopped being proud that he can take Hank all the way down. He remembers how awestruck Hank was the first time he did it, how blissed out he was.

Hank isn’t even fully hard when Connor starts, but Connor has him there in moments, and he feels Hank relax back against the tub as he slips his fingers into Connor’s hair.

Connor touches Hank where he can reach him - his thighs, his stomach, running his fingers through the hair on his chest until Hank catches him by the wrist and winds their fingers together.

“Fuck,” Connor can hear him saying, although the water distorts it in a way that Connor has always liked, because he has to focus on it to hear it properly…

Connor likes that this feels familiar, too. He likes that Hank isn’t reserved about it, that he’s not shy about using his hold on Connor’s hair to guide him, or that he rocks his hips up into him as much as he can manage in their position. He likes that Hank touches his LED, which Hank used to say looked like fractured light under the water and the bubble bath.

When he feels Hank getting close, Connor pulls back far enough that he can taste him on his tongue first, and he basks in the familiar analysis data, Hank’s chemical makeup, as he swallows.

Hank grasps Connor’s arm and lifts him up, pushing his wet hair out of his eyes before he hauls him into his arms and kisses him. He’s leaned back against the tub enough that Connor can lie against his chest, wrapping his arms around his neck and running his fingers through his hair.

Hank traces the ridges of Connor’s spine, rubbing droplets of water into his skin while he catches his breath. When he does, Connor kisses the corner of his mouth and says, “I’ve still got it, right?”

Hank laughs at that, a full-bodied laugh that Connor can feel reverberating through his own chest, and ruffles Connor’s hair. “Yeah,” he says. “Of course you’ve still got it.”

Connor hums, pleases, and kisses him again.

They do get out of the water eventually - Hank has two robes sitting on the floor waiting for them, and Connor towels his hair off in the mirror while Hank wraps his arms around him from behind, and it feels comfortable and familiar, but it also feels exciting and new in a way that Connor finds he likes - like they’re driving down a road they don’t know in a neighborhood they do.

The robe is soft, and Connor likes the way it feels on his skin, but he still shrugs out of it before he gets under the covers, and he’s pleased when Hank does the same. He lets Hank wrap an arm around him and pull him into him, and he kisses him for a moment before he softly says, “Do you want to turn over for me?”

He’s pushing, like he told himself he would, just the smallest bit. But Hank doesn’t balk or question him beyond a raised eyebrow - he just goes, twisting onto his stomach and folding his arms under his pillow.

Connor looks at him, at that familiar pattern of stretch marks above Hank’s hips that he’s always loved and the scar on his shoulder from an old gunshot wound, before he pulls the covers over him and lies down at his side.

Connor doesn’t need to sleep tonight. Instead, he reaches out, kissing Hank’s shoulder and gently rubbing his back, pressing a little harder in the areas he knows Hank always carries some tension.

“You’re going to spoil me,” Hank says into his pillow, and Connor smiles against him.

“You should get some rest,” he says softly, and Hank doesn’t protest.

It’s a little thing, letting Connor stay awake beside him and soothe away the tension from the travel and his first signing, but it comes with a small touch of vulnerability anyway, and an acceptance of the ways Connor is different from him, the unique ways Connor can take care of him.

And that’s not brand new, exactly, but it is still unfamiliar enough to feel a little foreign and entirely special.

Connor waits until Hank’s breathing has mellowed out and stabilized, until he’s sure he’s asleep, but then he kisses his hair and whispers, “I could love you again.”

He thinks Hank could love him again, too.

~~

When Hank wakes up in the morning, the shower is running in the bathroom - Connor doesn’t ever _need_ to shower, but he used to like to when he was trying to clear his thoughts, and it seems that hasn’t changed. The space beside Hank feels empty, even if it’s what he’s been accustomed to for most of two years - it’s funny, Hank supposes, how easy it is to become attached to certain things again, especially the ones you never really stopped missing.

His cell phone rings on the nightstand, and Hank reaches for it to find Molly’s name on the screen - Molly is the marketing representative his publisher assigned to him. She isn’t traveling with him, but she’s been in constant contact.

“Hey,” Hank says when he picks up. He tucks his phone under his ear so he can pull his boxers back on, at least.

“Morning,” Molly says. “I didn’t hear from you yesterday. Did everything go okay at the signing?”

“Oh,” Hank says. “Yeah, sorry. It was good.”

“I talked with the bookstore manager last night - they thought so, too. Are you set with things to do today? I can send over some sights to visit...”

If Hank leans a little to the right and cranes his neck, he can see the shape of Connor’s body through the glass shower walls and the open door. He’d feel bad about it...but Connor left the door open for a reason. “I’m okay,” Hank says. “Just going to hang out.”

“Okay,” Molly says. “Let me know if you need anything. I’ll talk to you once you get to Philadelphia.”

“Hey, Molly?” Hank says, because he’s been thinking about what Connor said, about not wanting to say goodbye today, and he thinks he knows an alternative he could offer him.

“Yeah?”

Hank looks at Connor again, watches him moving behind clouded glass, and he says, “Never mind. Lost my train of thought.”

“Okay,” Molly says. “You need anything else?”

“Nope. I’m good.”

“You know where to reach me. Talk to you soon.”

“See you,” Hank says, and he sets his phone aside. 

He was going to ask Molly if there was any reason a friend couldn’t travel with him. He didn’t see why not when he was considering it last night - every hotel room Hank has booked has plenty of space for a second person, and the rental car will cost the same regardless, so Hank doesn’t see why it would matter, at least while they’re driving the leg of the tour along the east coast.

It was a foolish thought on his part, something he wouldn’t have done if he had been any more awake when Molly called, which is why he thought better of it. The _idea_ to bring Connor along isn’t foolish, but asking for permission from the publisher who had Hank pull Connor from the dedication...that seems like asking for trouble. Molly knows about Connor, probably enough to know where he lives and to put two and two together, so even if Hank didn’t mention who he was, she would know.

It’s easier, Hank decides, to just not ask permission at all.

The water turns off in the bathroom, and Hank does pretend not to look when Connor gets out and slips himself back into his robe, even if he can also feel Connor glancing at him to see if he is.

“Morning,” Connor says after a moment, when he emerges from the bathroom to lean in the doorway.

“Hey, baby,” Hank says. “You okay?”

Connor smiles. “Showers aren’t always a bad sign.”

They used to be, before, when Hank and Connor were both struggling. Hank doesn’t say that, but Connor might think it anyway, because he adds, “I was thinking of what we could do today.”

“Yeah?” Hank asks, pleased.

“Mhm. I mean...if you want to spend the day with me.”

“Of course I do,” Hank says quickly.

Connor’s smile broadens and he crosses the room to lean over Hank and kiss him.

Hank runs his fingers through Connor’s hair as he does, and when they part, he says, “Can we talk about something first?”

He thought about waiting until later that evening to mention the tour - he’s worried he’s going to come on too strong, that somehow it will fuck this delicate thing up, so it’s tempting to let his usual inertia get the better of him, to put it off until later and just let their day be a good one, without any risk.

But that wouldn’t be fair to Connor. He deserves the time to properly consider it...especially if he’s going to say yes.

(And Hank really wants him to say yes.)

Connor straightens, leaning back against the desk behind him and crossing his arms as he studies Hank. “Sure,” he says. “What’s up?”

Hank reaches for his shirt on the floor at the foot of the bed before he says anything - he’s used to Connor looking at him and taking in every last detail, and it turns out his willful lack of self-consciousness in the face of it is a learned habit that comes back easily, but he still doesn’t want to have this conversation with Connor running side processes about his nipples, or whatever weird shit he does in his head.

“Okay,” Hank says once he’s a little more decent. “I was thinking...about us, and about how two days doesn’t feel like nearly enough time to, I don’t know...talk about everything we should talk about, I guess? Or to reconnect in the way I’d like to.”

“A shame you have to sleep,” Connor says wryly - not because he doesn’t realize Hank is trying to say something serious, Hank doesn’t think, but because Connor has Hank’s same habit of deflecting his own uncertainty with deadpan humor.

It’s not a _bad_ habit, exactly, not in Hank’s book, not when Connor does it. He’s actually relieved for the way it breaks some of the tension in the room. “Yeah,” he says with a huffed laugh. “But since I do, I was thinking maybe you could just...come with me.”

Connor doesn’t say anything at first, not beyond his LED cycling to yellow, so Hank fills the silence by adding, “I get it if you can’t. I know you have a lot to do here, and I don’t know if you can take the time off...” Hank knows Amanda Stern set up an organization to pay Connor and the others for their advocacy work, so they wouldn’t have to work odd jobs just to make ends meet, but he has no idea if that makes her Connor’s boss or if Connor is his own boss.

“Yeah,” Connor says softly, which isn’t really an answer to anything Hank has said. “You really want me to come with you? For how long?”

“I do. I’m in Philly the next two days and Pittsburgh after that, and then New York City yet before I fly out to Florida. I thought you could come with me that far, at least.”

“A week, then,” Connor says, because of course he has Hank’s tour schedule in his head.

“Yeah,” Hank says. “If you want to. I’d like the company, and the time off might be nice for you.” They talked about Connor’s work enough yesterday for Hank to know it’s stressful, and that Connor feels worn out by it a lot of the time, but of course it is, and of course he does.

“I did say I could use a vacation,” Connor says, fussing with his hands like he does when he’s thinking. “I don’t know, Hank.”

“Why not?” Hank says it in the least challenging way he can - he just wants to know so they can talk about it.

Connor shrugs. “Because in a week we’ll just be in the same position we are now with saying goodbye.”

“That’s true. But we’ll have had another week to figure shit out, and that’s worth something, isn’t it? And I mean...even when I get back to Detroit, I’m going to call you, as long as you want me to.”

Connor nods. “Yeah,” he says softly. “That’s worth something.” He looks up at Hank with a small smile. “We’re not going to be able to do any of the nice things I had planned today if I have to spend it packing and getting everything in order with work.”

Hank grins as relief floods him, and he figures it’s permission enough to get up and cross the space between them, to put his hands on Connor’s face and look at him. “Guess we’ll have to make it up to ourselves tomorrow,” he says, and he can feel Connor smiling when he kisses him.

It got lost, a little bit, became harder to see when things were a struggle between them, but Connor has this wonderful way of making Hank, who has never felt like his luck was very good at all, feel terribly lucky. He felt like that when he first met him, and he feels it now.

“I should get dressed,” Connor says, reluctantly pulling away from Hank and retrieving his clothes. “Do you, um...I’m going to have to go by our office and get some things done. You can come, if you want?”

Hank figured if Connor wanted to come with him for the week that he would spend today hanging out in his hotel room while Connor got himself pulled together, and he would have been fine with that...

But this, although unexpected, is so much better. Of course he wants to see where Connor works.

“Yeah,” Hank says. “I’d like that, baby.”

It’s the first time the nickname has seen the light of the day, and the first time it’s been said that they haven’t been entwined with each other, and from the look on Connor’s face, he also knows it.

“You want to go by your apartment and change first?” Hank asks as they get dressed. 

Connor snorts at that and says, “It’s okay. North already knows I spent the night with you, so there’s not much point.”

“She does?”

“Yeah. I texted her that I wouldn’t be home last night and she told me to ‘get it’. They’ll be cool about it. They like you.”

“They don’t know me,” Hank says, because they don’t.

Connor pulls his sweater over his head and looks at him in the mirror as he fixes his hair. “No, but...I’ve told them a lot about you.”

And that feels good in a way Hank isn’t entirely prepared for.

Hank has an oatmeal-colored shawl collar sweater that he pulls on, mostly because it’s the top he grabs from his suitcase first, and he combines it with the jeans he wore yesterday, because, perhaps predictably, he owns no more than two pairs, and he only packed the one. His vague interest in presenting himself in a certain more professional way has only come out of necessity with his work, and so he’s still mostly faking it and cutting corners where he can - why buy multiple pairs of nice jeans when one will do the trick?

Connor comes over to him while Hank tucks his reader glasses into the neckline of his sweater, tilting his head with a small smile. “Did your publisher tell you that you had to get some new clothes for this, or do you actually dress like this these days?”

Hank snorts at that. “Hard to sell a book when your shirt is talking over you, you know?”

Connor reaches out to straighten Hank’s collar, touching his glasses when he does. “You look nice,” he says. He’s quiet a moment, and then he adds, “You always look nice.”

“Yeah, you’re not bad either.” Hank kisses Connor’s forehead when Connor tries to elbow him. “Come on. We should get going.”

It’s a little awkward, the walk to the car, and Hank thinks that it’s funny how daylight makes everything feel different, especially considering the fact that they could hardly break apart from each other on their way up to Hank’s room last night. Neither of them quite knows what’s okay in these different circumstances, and Connor walks close enough to him that their fingers brush occasionally, but he never actually takes Hank’s hand.

They have to work on unraveling Connor’s guilt, Hank thinks - his guilt about being the one to initiate a relationship between them that didn’t work, and about his fear that he was too gentle with Hank, enabling his self-destructive habits in the process...because they haven’t talked about it, but Hank has picked up enough little pieces to put the rest of Connor’s thoughts together. It was him reaching out to ask Hank if he should have fought with him more once he read the book, and him moving with his usual confidence last night but also desperately asking Hank if it was okay.

Hank knows. He’s spent enough time angry at himself, unsure of himself, to know what that doubt and guilt look like.

For now, though, he just wraps an arm around Connor’s shoulders as they cross the lobby, because it’s okay, and Hank thinks it could be different this time, and he wants to take that weight from him if he can.

And it feels good, the way Connor looks up at him, surprised but smiling.

When they get to Hank’s car, Connor slouches back in the passenger seat - his posture was already getting a little less formal in the time they spent together, but it’s gotten so much more casual since they’ve been apart, and Hank kind of loves that, if he’s being honest.

“Is your publisher okay with me coming along?” he asks, and Hank shrugs.

“They said I could bring a friend if I wanted,” Hank says, which is true, and also avoids the truth about the dedication, about him being asked to pull Connor from it...not because he’s trying to lie, but just because he doesn’t know how to tell Connor that part yet.

“Okay,” Connor says, “but they maybe didn’t mean they wanted you to bring an android with a prominent role in the revolution and a recognizable face, either.”

“Hey,” Hank says, reaching over and squeezing the back of Connor’s neck. “Don’t back out on me, okay? I want you to come with me, and even if somebody did care, I wouldn’t give a shit about it. They said I could bring a friend, and you’re a friend.”

Connor looks at Hank for a moment and then says, “I care so much more about what people think of you than you do.”

“Yeah, you do,” Hank laughs. “Look, if you want to lay low and not come to the signings or anything, you can.”

“I didn’t say that,” Connor says. There’s a note of protest in his voice, like he wants to support him, and while Hank hasn’t been entirely without people in his corner over the last few years, he _has_ missed having Connor there.

“I just think we should be careful,” Connor continues. “It affects my work, too. What people think of me, what conclusions they might draw from linking me to your book...etcetera.”

“Okay,” Hank says. “We can be discreet.”

Connor is quiet for a moment, and unmoving in his seat. But then he reaches for Hank’s hand, winding their fingers together.

The address Connor programs for his office is downtown, about a twenty minute drive away, so Hank eats the muffin he grabbed from the to go bar on the way while Connor passes his coin between his fingers. He’s obviously thinking about something, so Hank doesn’t interrupt him.

Finally, Connor sighs and says, “I know it’s implicit in all of this, probably, but I still need to say it.”

Hank raises an eyebrow. “Say what?”

“That last night wasn’t a hook up, or for old times’ sake, or something I would do with just a friend. I know you know, but...”

“Yeah,” Hank says softly. “I do know.” He shrugs. “My big takeaway from rehab and the aftermath was that feelings are messy as hell sometimes, and that’s okay. We spend so much time trying to sort everything into neat little boxes, but sometimes we just have to live in the mess.”

Connor squeezes his hand. “I guess we do.”

Connor’s office building, a charity called the Stern Foundation, is not what Hank is expecting - it’s some hip, trendy space, like the startups some of his classmates from college used to work for, all bright colors and modern furniture when they first walk in. There’s a picture of Connor and Amanda with the other androids on the wall, and photos from other community events, too.

Connor hangs up his coat by the door. “Anyone here?” he calls down the hallway.

“Hey, Con,” someone says from one of the offices in the back. “We didn’t think you were going to...” Amanda steps out a moment later, with an android Hank recognizes as Chloe behind her. “Oh,” she says when she sees Hank.

Hank wonders how much she knows. She’s looking at him like it might be a lot.

“This is Hank,” Connor says. “Hank, Chloe and Amanda.”

Amanda recovers from any surprise a moment later, coming down the hall to shake Hank’s hand. “Hi,” she says. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“A mixed bag, probably,” Hank says, a lame attempt at a joke, and Connor elbows him.

“All good things,” he says, and Amanda nods.

“All good things,” she echoes.

Chloe joins them a moment later. “Hi,” she says to Hank before looking at Connor. “What are you doing here? North said you wouldn’t be in.”

“Yeah,” Connor says. “I wasn’t going to be, but...”

He’s interrupted by the door opening behind him, and Hank recognizes North and Josh stepping inside behind them when he turns. He has a moment to think that the leaders of the android revolution are dressed like they’re working at a trendy startup, too, before North looks at Connor and says, “This isn’t what I meant when I told you to enjoy a fun day off with your friend.” She holds her hand out for Hank to shake. “Hi, Hank. I’m North, this is Josh.”

“Hey,” Hank says before Connor grasps North by the arm and pulls her away.

“Can I just talk to all of you in the conference room, maybe?” he says.

North gapes at him. “Yeah, sure.” She looks between him and Hank. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Connor says, and he doesn’t say anything else before he leads them down the hall.

“Nice to meet you,” Josh says to Hank before he follows after them.

Hank stays behind, because he thinks if Connor wanted him to come along, he would have made it far more obvious. Instead, he occupies himself wandering around the office, around the lobby and down the hall.

He isn’t really trying to find Connor’s office as much as he is just trying to keep himself busy, but he also recognizes it plainly as Connor’s once he gets there. There’s a photo of Sumo on the desk, unmistakable, beside an empty picture frame - maybe it used to be a picture of Connor and the boyfriend he dumped a few weeks back.

Hank wanders inside, seating himself in one of the guest chairs. He doesn’t want to go through any of Connor’s things, but he still looks around.

And that’s when he realizes there’s a second copy of his book, in addition to the one he signed yesterday, on Connor’s shelf.

It’s pulled out and propped up, like Connor is proud of it, so the cover art is visible - it’s abstract, fractured pieces of color and light, and no one except maybe Connor will ever know that Hank chose it from his few options because it reminded him of Connor’s LED.

Hank reaches around behind himself to turn on the light, and he spends a few minutes just sitting there, looking at the carefully organized binders and file folders on Connor’s desk, at his bulletin board and the notes and photos of their accomplishments pinned there, and it feels kind of remarkable that Connor has Hank’s book on his shelf like it’s something special when Hank is sitting here feeling so proud, and a little in awe, of him.

They’ve always been good at that, Hank thinks, seeing each other’s strengths and talents, even if they can’t always see their own. It’s nice to know that hasn’t changed.

Hank hears the front door open again, and footsteps coming down the hall. He recognizes the voice that says, “Hey, Connor,” before Markus appears in the doorway, because of course he’s been listening to Markus’ voice broadcast across every news channel for almost three years now.

“Oh,” Markus says when he sees Hank there. “I thought Connor was here.”

“He’s back in the conference room.” Hank gets up, because it feels like the right thing to do. “I’m Hank. We haven’t actually met.”

Markus smiles. “Probably feel like you know me, though, right?”

“Yeah. Something like that.”

“Feeling’s mutual. Your time together was very important to Connor.”

It’s a little weird talking to all of Connor’s friends, but especially to Markus. It makes Hank very aware of the ways in which he was complicit and on the wrong side of things right up until the last moment, the ways in which he still doesn’t always feel like what he did to help was enough.

“I read your book,” Markus says conversationally, like they’re old friends, but Hank supposes he has to be good at talking. “I thought it was...thoughtful. There was a lot of care in it.”

Hank almost expects him to ask if it’s about Connor, or to point out the similarities, that he was almost certainly inspired by their time together. Markus is kind enough not to, but if he read it, and he knows Connor, Hank thinks he has to know.

“I was...well. I was trying to be responsible with it,” Hank says.

“It shows,” Markus says. “Was Connor showing you the office?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s small, but we’re proud of it. I’m glad you got to see it.”

The conference room door opens then, although the voices inside are still low enough that Hank can’t really make them out. Markus leans out into the hall and says, “Hey. What’s going on?”

“You’re late,” North says. “Connor’s ditching us.”

“For a week,” Connor says, exasperated.

“Everything okay?” Markus asks, but then he looks back at Hank, and Hank watches him put it together.

“Here,” Josh says. “Come back to my office, I can explain it...”

Connor weaves his way through the rest of them, nudging Hank back into his office and squeezing his hand as he passes him on his way to his desk. Hank watches him sit down and peel his synthskin back to interface with the terminal. “All good?” he asks softly.

Connor just looks up at him with a smile and winks.

The noise dies down in the hallway as the others go back to their offices, and when they do, Hank sits forward in his chair a little bit, watching Connor work. He’s focused on something, that little furrow in his brow that Hank knows well, and it’s...cute.

It’s cute.

“What are you working on?” he asks. Connor has been so interested in Hank’s work, but Hank is just as interested in his.

“Confirming volunteers for our thirium runs in a few weeks since I won’t be in next week to do it. We send people through the areas where a lot of homeless androids end up with supplies, try to get a technician through once or twice a month for repairs...that sort of thing. Chloe and I do communications and volunteer coordination for our different efforts in the city, North and Simon do most of the fundraising...Josh and Markus handle advocacy with the media and the legislators, mostly. Amanda does a bit of all of it.”

Connor used to say he would want to be a cop again if he could, if anyone would hire an android in that role, back when he was newer, less established, still figuring things out. Hank wonders if that’s still true. He kind of doubts it, and he thinks that’s good, if he’s being honest.

He thinks both he and Connor can be happier and do more good elsewhere.

“I’m proud of you,” Hank says.

Connor doesn’t look away from his screen, but his mouth does quirk up in a little smile. “I’ll be right back,” he says. “I have to ask Chloe something.”

In the end, they’re there for a few hours, long enough that North circles around to talk to Hank about a bit of everything, his tour and whether he’s planning to write another book and Sumo, right down to asking to see pictures. Amanda asks if he wants to come with her to get lunch down the block while Connor works, and it doesn’t take Hank long to realize that he really likes her - he likes the way she talks about Connor, about their work, likes that she cares about both. He thinks Connor deserves that.

“He’s a little lost sometimes, I think,” Amanda says as they’re walking back to the office. “But they all are, every now and then. Waking up like that...it’s hard. We can’t possibly know how hard. But he cares, so much. And he’s trying. He’ll figure out where the different pieces of himself fit eventually.” She pauses a moment, and then she looks up at Hank and says, “I’m glad you’re reconnecting,” like she thinks the two things are connected.

And maybe they are.

“He was really fucked up after CyberLife,” Hank says, because he knows Amanda knows all of it. “The shit they put in his head...I know he didn’t know how to unwind all that. And I mean...I didn’t know how to help him, either. And I know you’ve helped.”

Amanda smiles. “I think you helped more than you know. Sometimes it’s more subtle, you know?”

“Yeah,” Hank says softly. “I do.”

Connor is waiting in the reception area when Hank and Amanda get back, getting up to meet them when they step inside. “Hey,” Hank says when he sees him. “You ready?”

“Yeah,” Connor says, and Amanda steps around Hank to wrap her arms around Connor.

“Have fun, okay?” she says. “And be careful.”

“Okay,” Connor says. “I brought Chloe up to speed on my areas, but if you need anything...”

“We’re not going to call you, Jesus,” Amanda scoffs. “Go on, get out of here.”

Connor smiles. “I’ll see you next week.”

He’s more confident about taking Hank’s hand than he was at the hotel, reaching for him and lacing their fingers together as Amanda retreats down the hall to her office.

They’re almost out the door when Markus leans out of his office and says, “Bye, Hank. Nice to meet you.”

“Yeah,” Hank says over his shoulder. “You too.”

And it _was_ nice - he likes knowing that Connor has a community, and a family, people who can be there for him in the ways Hank didn’t always know how to be, the ways he wasn’t always capable of when he was in the midst of his own struggles...although he’d like to try again, to be better.

He thinks both he and Connor are capable of being better these days.

“I really am proud of you,” Hank says when they get to the car, and Connor rolls his eyes good-naturedly.

“It’s just a job.”

“You’re doing good work.”

Connor sighs, dancing his coin over his fingers, and Hank watches him for a moment before he says, “What’s up?”

“Nothing,” Connor says, shrugging. “I’m in a better place than I used to be, but sometimes I still feel like the others are doing that work because they want to, because they’re good, and like I’m doing it because I’m just...trying to overwrite some of the shit I did back in 2038. The others don’t get that.”

The others don’t, but Hank does. Hank knows exactly what it is to have done incredible good with one hand and to have caused so much hurt with the other. He knows the guilt that comes with it, the way it neutralizes any pride, knows that it might become less over time, but that it’s also something you just have to make room for.

“I get it,” Hank says softly, and Connor leans across the console and kisses him.

“I know,” he whispers.

The drive to Connor’s apartment is much shorter than any other they’ve done so far, just a few blocks away. Connor leans back in his seat as they pull onto the road, quiet for a moment before he says, “The place is a mess. Don’t judge me.”

“Messier than mine can get?”

Connor cracks a smile at that. “Good point.” He looks down at his hands in his lap, tracing the ridges of his sleeve cuff. “What did you and Amanda talk about?”

He asks if innocently enough, like he doesn’t already know, but Hank is sure he does. He elbows him and says, “You, mostly. She loves you.” _And I loved you. Love you._

Connor nods. “I know. She’s a good friend.”

“I liked her,” Hank says softly. “I liked all of them.”

“I think they liked you, too. Maybe...” Connor starts, although he cuts himself off, looking over at Hank with a dim smile. “I’m glad you got to meet them.”

Hank imagines Connor was going to suggest that they could spend more time together at some point, that the reminder that they live halfway across the country from each other keeps sneaking up on him in the same way it does on Hank. He wishes it wasn’t the case - it does make things more difficult, and it’s a sobering thought. 

Hank doesn’t press Connor on what he was going to say. He gets it, he thinks. They both ended up where they needed to over the last few years, but...he still wishes they’d ended up closer together, physically. 

When they get to Connor’s apartment, Hank says, “Am I allowed to come up with you?”

“Obviously,” Connor replies, smiling.

So they park the car, and Hank gets out and follows Connor upstairs - he lives on the second floor of some historic row home, with original hardwood floors and crown molding and a built-in bookshelf in the living room.

It’s a nice place, Hank thinks. What’s nicer is seeing little pieces of Connor that he recognizes scattered throughout - the record player and the vinyl albums in a wooden crate underneath the table it’s sitting on, a few that Hank knows Connor loves because he loved them when they were together, the books on the shelf that Hank gave him when he moved out, and...more pictures of Sumo. Of course.

“He really missed you when you left,” Hank says, tapping one of the frames when Connor looks around at him.

“Oh,” he says. “Yeah, it’s...easier to explain pictures of an ex-boyfriend’s dog to someone new you’re dating than...pictures of an ex-boyfriend. Learned that the hard way.”

“Oh,” Hank says, and it’s kind of hard not to think of his own ex telling him that living in Hank’s house was like living with Connor’s ghost. “Yeah. I get that.”

Connor gives him a small smile. “I do miss Sumo, though.”

Hank thought the trip would be hard on Sumo if he brought him along - a lot of time alone in hotel rooms, even if he does like car rides - but now he’s almost regretting leaving him with Jeff while he’s away. Sumo looked for Connor for months after he left, lying on Connor’s side of the bed and looking about as forlorn as Hank felt. Hank spent a lot of time wishing he could explain it to the dog, and now he wishes there was a way for Sumo to know Connor might be back in their lives.

“I kind of thought you might have gotten yourself a dog,” Hank says, following Connor as he walks down the hall to his room.

“Landlord won’t allow it. It’s hard enough to find a decent place that will rent to androids, much less one that allows pets in this city. North and I both want one, though.”

“That sucks,” Hank says, but Connor shrugs.

“It’s okay. It is what it is.”

The rest of the apartment wasn’t a mess at all, and Hank thought Connor was maybe exaggerating about it, until they get to his room. There’s folded laundry sitting on the bed waiting to be put away, and books and work papers scattered over the desk, and..

“Jesus,” Hank says. “Who knew you were going to turn into a slob?”

Connor fakes a pout at that as he digs his suitcase out of his closet - the same one Hank bought him to move out with, Hank realizes with a pang. “You promised not to say anything.”

“Yeah,” Hank says, and he goes to Connor and wraps his arms around him, because this is hitting him in a way he wasn’t prepared for. He wanted Connor to have his own life, to build something for himself, but it’s still hard, realizing that there’s so much of him that Hank doesn’t know. Connor leans back into him, letting out a pleased hum, and Hank kisses his hair. “You’re right, baby.”

It’s hard, but...that’s kind of the whole point, the reason Hank wanted to ask Connor along for as much of the trip as he could. It’s hard to both feel like he knows Connor intimately and like Connor is a stranger, and he thinks Connor probably feels the same, but they can rebuild what they had, on a stronger foundation than the one they had before.

Hank has to believe that.

He leans in the door while Connor packs a few pairs of jeans, a nice pair of dress pants, and enough shirts and sweaters for the week. Hank figures they’re about done when Connor fits two pairs of shoes into the suitcase, too, but then Connor looks up at him, LED spinning yellow. “Can you wait in the living room for a few minutes?”

“Oh,” Hank says. “Yeah. Sure.”

He figures Connor’s being weird about packing his underwear in front of him, or something...and that’s fine; they all have their things they’re unnecessarily precious about. But a few moments later, it occurs to Hank that Connor is only ever cagey like this when he’s trying to surprise him with something.

And Connor’s surprises are always good. Two years have passed, but Hank doubts that’s changed. Even the memories are...well. They’re a lot, even now.

Which sort of makes Hank think he might have some ground to make up.

But Hank sets that aside for now. For now, he sits on Connor’s couch in D.C. looking at a picture of his dog in Detroit, and he tries to only think about this week, and not the one after that and beyond. He wants to focus on what’s good, what’s in the present, and just hope the rest of it will fall into place.

He thinks it will. He wants to believe it will.

But he thinks both he and Connor will be better served if they don’t burden themselves with expectations, of each other, and of themselves. They know where that road goes.

It’s better to just...let things be.

~~

Connor is not sparing about the surprises he packs.

It’s almost comical, really. He actually almost wishes he hadn’t sent Hank away back at his apartment so they both could have had a good laugh about it, his suitcase looking like a sex shop blew up inside of it.

Some of the things Hank is already familiar with. He’s seen them before, because Connor surprised him with them once before, two years ago - the lace and silk even still smell faintly of Hank’s house to Connor’s perceptive senses, because he’s has had them tucked back as far as they’ll go in one of his dresser drawers, untouched for two years even if he knows he looks damn good in them.

Sometimes things have too many memories attached to them. Not even bad memories - no, Connor has some _very good_ memories around those garments. Just...loud memories. Disruptive memories, the kind Connor couldn’t afford to lose himself in.

Until now.

And the rest of what he’s packed...well. Connor knows he’s attractive. Connor knows he isn’t shy about what he wants, physically, or about experimenting, and his purchases over the last two years, made entirely for his own gratification, reflect that.

It takes a very conscious effort on Connor’s part not to start unpacking a few things for him and Hank to explore when they get back to the hotel later that night, but it’s like Hank already said...sex was never the problem. Sex was some unspoken language between them that they tried to make enough while they struggled elsewhere.

And Connor thinks that’s changed, or that it could. He wouldn’t be here if he didn’t think that. But he also doesn’t think either of them will be served by falling back into old habits.

So his suitcase is untouched across the room, and Connor sits at the foot of the bed, the sleeves of his button-down shirt rolled up and his chin propped in his hand, while he and Hank talk.

It’s mostly a post-mortem of their failed relationships - not that Connor necessarily thinks sharing all the intimate details of a past relationship is a requirement to make a current relationship work, but he _does_ think it’s relevant here. There’s a reason none of his other attempts at dating ever went anywhere, and it’s sitting right in front of him, even if Connor needed to get Hank about this close to see it.

“He said I talked about you too much,” Connor tells Hank when they get to his two months with Brandon that went up in flames just weeks ago.

“Did you?” Hank asks, amused.

And when Connor laughs at that he isn’t forcing it, and he admits what he wouldn’t admit to Brandon that night. “Yeah,” he says, and he can’t stop laughing, and Hank can’t help joining him, either. It’s not even that it’s _funny_...it’s just that it feels so good to let some of this shit out.

Hank shifts, lying on his side with his elbow propping him up and his head in his hand, mostly so he’s close enough to Connor that he can reach out and put his hand on his leg, a companionable gesture as his laughter fades into a soft, fond smile.

“Yeah,” he says, like Connor asked him a question, even though he didn’t. “I, um...the boyfriend I was living with for a bit, Peter...it was the living together that put the nail in that coffin, I think. It just kind of happened - he lost his job, and his apartment, and it was only supposed to be for a few weeks anyway, but...two months later he’s breaking up with me and telling me that it’s like living with your ghost. So...I get it.” Hank shakes his head, laughing a little. “He never even read the book.”

Connor knows he shouldn’t feel pleased by it, but...he does. Just a bit. He’s not the jealous type, generally, but maybe he’ll always be, just a little bit, over Hank. They went through so much, through something so formative, together, and so even in the two years they were apart, it was always so easy to feel like some small part of Hank was his.

“The book isn’t about me,” Connor says softly. “It’s about you.”

Hank squeezes his leg. “Yeah, but I mean...I wouldn’t have written it without you, and I think that’s obvious. You’re more in the process than you are in the pages, but you’re there. Anyone looking could see you.”

It’s funny, how something that made Connor so angry just a few weeks ago makes him feel so flattered now, with some time to process, and a little more perspective. Hank should have told him what the book was about - they both know that - but the rest of it...

The rest of it Connor doesn’t mind nearly as much.

“I think it kept me sober,” Hank says, shrugging when Connor looks at him. “Writing, I mean. Just...the book gave me something else to do, and somewhere else to put all that shit. I really thought I would relapse after rehab. Which I guess is part of why I didn’t tell you. Just didn’t know if it would be right or fair to burden you with my personal shit.”

“I get it,” Connor says softly. The good and the shitty thing about breakups, Connor knows well, is that you take part of that person with you, and they take a piece with them, that all the shared threads forming the tapestry of their story belong to both of them.

He stretches out beside Hank, shifting so he’s lying close to him even if they aren’t touching. “I almost called you when I was thinking about getting the upgrade,” he says softly.

“The drinking upgrade?” Hank asks wryly. “Were you looking for a cautionary tale to talk you out of it?”

“No,” Connor says. “I mean, yes, but mostly because the ingestion and genital upgrades are usually done together. And I didn’t really want to be manually opening my chest cavity up and emptying a fluids receptacle every time I wanted to get a drink with someone, but I also...” He blinks, tilting his head and studying the way Hank is looking at him for a moment, because he’s always loved how attentive Hank is to him, and how perceptive. “I actually didn’t want the dick at first.”

“No?”

“No,” Connor says. “I just...I don’t know. I guess I wanted people to want me the way I was. I didn’t want partners to be relieved that I was equipped, or whatever you want to call it.”

He wanted anyone else to want him the way Hank always did, but of course that was hard to find. Hard to find someone who didn’t just want to get his fingers in Connor’s wires, who didn’t want Connor _because_ he wasn’t human and they thought that was hot by virtue of him being foreign, and even harder to find someone who wasn’t freaked out by the only way Connor could experience pleasure with the body he was given.

It was easier to get the upgrade, even if it felt a bit like letting people off the hook.

“Do you...” Hank starts, and then stops. “If you don’t like doing things that way...”

“Oh, no,” Connor says quickly. “I do. I just...mostly didn’t like how it made people comfortable, and how it made it more difficult to tell if they wanted me for who I am, or in spite of it.” He reaches for Hank’s face, running his fingers over his beard. “I don’t have to think so hard with you. That’s why I was going to call. I just thought maybe talking to you would help me figure it out, but...like you said. It was personal.”

“Yeah,” Hank says softly. He’s quiet for a moment, and then he adds, “I do want you.”

And Connor likes hearing it, he does...but he also already knows.

Connor reaches out to brush an errant piece of hair back from Hank’s face so he can kiss his forehead. “I want you, too,” he says, which isn’t the same thing as “I love you,” even if he thinks that’s true, too. “You should get some sleep. We have to leave early tomorrow.” 

Hank isn’t any more interested in sleep than Connor is, not if the way he reaches around to squeeze Connor’s ass and pull him into him when he kisses him is any indication. And they do have to leave early, but Connor also doesn’t make any effort to hold his ground, just laughs and gives into it.

It’s easy, but...it’s not wrong to just let things be easy, Connor doesn’t think. At least not all the time.

~~

Hank has either become more of a morning person (possible, Connor thinks, given his improved health) or he just knows better than to complain about being tired after ignoring Connor’s suggestion that sleep might be a good thing last night.

(It was a good night, and Connor is also at fault, so he offers to drive. Hank’s rental is autonomous, but Hank can at least sleep if he’s in the passenger seat.)

He doesn’t sleep, though. He calls Jeff to check on Sumo, and then they sit there, occasionally talking but mostly just existing in companionable silence.

It’s funny how the better you know someone, and the safer you feel with them, the less you have to talk, Connor thinks, and equally funny how androids have developed similar inclinations with deviancy, as if it’s an inherent part of being alive and of loving someone.

And it’s funny how he’s only been with Hank for two days and they’ve already easily fallen back into that.

“Are you going to write another book, do you think?” Connor asks at some point about halfway to Philadelphia.

“I don’t know,” Hank says. “I’m not sure I have another one in me, you know? I wasn’t really trying to be a writer, or whatever.”

“You’re a good one,” Connor says, shrugging. “What do you want to do, then?”

“I don’t know,” Hank says again. “Jeff is retiring in a few months, and he’s been talking about doing private investigations and consulting work once he does. He’s been asking about going into that together.”

“Is that what you want?” Connor asks, surprised. “To be a cop again?”

“I mean...I was good at it,” Hank says. “And I wouldn’t really be a cop. It would be like the good parts of the work without the shitty ones, you know?”

Hank doesn’t know what Connor is thinking, which is that he can’t leave D.C., and if Hank can’t leave Detroit, he doesn’t know where that leaves them.

That’s the inherent problem with what they’re doing here, Connor thinks, almost treating this like a trial run, a seven day extension on their homework, a chance to pretend...after which their lives are just as complicated, and just as separate from one another.

He wants to ask Hank what happens seven days from now if they decide they want to be together. What gives, and which one of them sacrifices their entire life, everything that matters to them, for the other?

Connor doesn’t know, and seven days, this deadline they’ve given themselves, doesn’t seem like enough time together to figure it out.

Hank doesn’t seem troubled by it, not in the same way Connor feels, but that also isn’t in Hank’s nature, really. When he’s at his best, doing well, he’s unflappable, and Connor both loves that and finds it frustratingly difficult to read.

“What would we have done?” Hank asks, oblivious to Connor’s thoughts. “If we’d done what you planned yesterday, I mean.”

He either truly doesn’t know what Connor’s thinking, or he doesn’t think now is the time to discuss it and he’s trying to move them somewhere else (and if that’s it, he’s probably right - two days after reconnecting, with an entire week ahead of them that might change things even if they could arrive at a solution now, is not the time to be talking about which of them is willing to relocate).

Connor lets himself be led in the conversation either way - it’s a fault of his, worrying about the future instead of enjoying the present. He’s gotten better at managing it, but it will always be a natural consequence of his preconstruction software, and Hank’s kind hand is an appreciated one.

“Oh,” he says, looking over at Hank. “There was an art exhibit I wanted to show you. I’ve seen it twice.” 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. It’s the first android artist who’s gotten an exhibit at the museum, with this photography series about identity, kind of a meditation on the ways being alive means the same thing for us, and something different at the same time. It’s hard to explain it.” 

Hard to explain it, but it meant something to Connor, moved something in him, and he had wanted Hank to see it, even if of course he wanted him to see his office and meet his friends more.

Hank takes his phone out of his pocket and types something, and then he holds it out to Connor. “This it?”

Connor looks at the familiar face of the artist, a WR400 model like North, and says, “Yeah.”

“It’s in through December. We could still go.”

They could. That’s true. “I’d like that,” he says, and Hank reaches for his hand.

Connor looks at their fingers laced together, and he knows he shouldn’t say it, but it comes out anyway. “Is this a fair thing for us to do to ourselves?” he asks, and he doesn’t know, but since they’re already on the road, it certainly isn’t a fair question on his part, even if it’s already out of his mouth.

“What do you mean?” Hank asks. 

“This. Putting ourselves on a trial basis for seven days to try to decide if we want to make things work.”

To Connor’s surprise, Hank huffs a small laugh, covering his mouth with his hand.

“What?” Connor asks, confused.

“Nothing. You’re just cute.” 

Connor isn’t looking to be patronized, and Hank must be able to tell, because he quickly says, “I know you can’t always help it, but your ability to weigh risks and percentages and all that shit makes you kind of a pessimist.”

Connor keeps gaping at him, so Hank sighs and adds, “I think it occurred to me much earlier than it did to you that we could just...try again, together, if we wanted to. I’ve known long before the last few days, and I don’t think you have, and that’s okay, baby, it really is, but this isn’t a trial. I already know you. I need you to understand that you’re not being tested, even if you are testing me.”

Connor is, admittedly, very afraid of failure, very attuned to the ways he needs to prove himself in any situation. “Being a CyberLife prototype will make you paranoid,” he says softly.

“I know,” Hank says quickly. “It’s okay. I just want more time with you, and that’s all. No test, no trial basis...I don’t want you to think of this like that.”

Connor’s throat feels thick when he nods. “Okay,” he says softly. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Hank says. “It’s good to talk about it”

Connor is quiet, thinking long enough that Hank takes their joined hands and places them in his lap, pulling Connor just the smallest bit closer to him. “You want to talk about anything else?” he asks softly. “I mean...now’s a good time. We’re still a ways out.” 

Now would be a good time, Connor thinks, to mention that he can’t leave D.C., that he can’t abandon their work there or choose not to stand with his people again. (Maybe he still feels like he’s atoning for something, like he needs to...it’s hard to say, but he knows he can’t go.) 

But he doesn’t know how to give voice to that yet - his complicated feelings about his role in the revolution, and his other role with CyberLife leading up to it, how he always, still, feels like he’s doing too little. He’s already decided he _could_ talk to Hank about it, in a way he can’t to Josh or Simon, or even North, and certainly not Markus, but he doesn’t know how to explain why he can’t leave, because it’s hard, and because it _hurts_...because he’ll want to, even if Hank won’t ask him for an explanation.

It’s easier to turn that uncomfortably illuminating light back on Hank. “How does the book end?” he asks softly.

Hank laughs a little at that, his hand warm around Connor’s. “You read it.”

“No, I mean...Alexander’s answer. The one you took the title from. What was it?”

“Oh,” Hank says, and he sounds the smallest bit smug about it...which is fair, Connor supposes. He wonders how many times Hank has been asked that, and he’s sure it feels good to have written something that matters enough to people for them to ask. “How about I tell you when the week is up?”

“You actually know?” Connor asks. “I thought you might have been...”

“Lying?”

Connor smiles. “Crafting a better story out of that signing. The ambiguity was the point of the ending, so you wouldn’t need to know what his specific lines are.”

“That’s true,” Hank says, shrugging. “I do, though. Haven’t told anyone before, beyond that piece in the title, but I would tell you, if you really want to know.”

“But not right now,” Connor points out, a hint of disappointment edging his voice. He doesn’t know why it matters to him, the ending of Hank’s book - it shouldn’t...and yet it was the thing that made him see Hank more clearly than he has in the last two years, than he maybe ever did, and he needs to know what Hank thinks happens to Saul and Alexander after the story ends. He knows what he thought reading it, but Hank’s is the opinion that matters to him.

“Yeah,” Hank says, reaching around to squeeze the back of Connor’s neck. “Patience is a virtue, or something.”

“Ha ha,” Connor says, faking a dry laugh that gets an actual one out of Hank.

“Come on. It’s written down in a notebook that I’m happy to give you, but I get embarrassed when people read my shit right in front of me.”

Connor sighs. “That’s fair,” he says, although a little begrudgingly, because he _is_ impatient.

“You know those characters aren’t us, right?” Hank says, smiling when Connor looks up at him. “I mean...they are. They’re influenced by me, and by how I feel about you. But they’re not us. I mean...they couldn’t be. It would always be what I think the inside of your head looks like, and not what it actually is.”

Connor squeezes his hand. “Yeah, but...what you think it looks like is also pretty damn close.”

Hank is doing it right now, looking through Connor’s question to see why exactly he’s asking it, recognizing that Connor is looking for reassurance about them in a place that feels rational but also maybe...isn’t. Because of course Hank is the actual answer, and not any fiction he wrote, even if the fiction did provide Connor with some insight he badly needed.

Hank squeezes Connor’s hand. “We’ll make it,” he says plainly. “If we want to.”

“I wanted to last time,” Connor says, voice soft.

“I know, baby. But that was...really complicated bullshit, and this...this is just distance. That’s all.”

It’s not the same thing as Hank saying he would move for Connor, and it certainly isn’t the same as Connor saying he can’t go. But it feels good anyway, even if...

“I’m not sure I’m better the same way you are,” Connor says, and it’s true. It’s been a nagging thought the last few days - Connor knows, can see plainly, that Hank has actually healed, while Connor just feels like he’s gotten better at coping, and at hiding it. He doesn’t need Hank to hold him through the night, pressed close into him to crowd his thoughts out, but that doesn’t mean the thoughts aren’t still there.

Hank hits the button on the dash that unlocks his seat position, spinning his chair around so he can move to the back seat. “Come on,” he says when Connor looks at him, confused. “You already fried the alarm. Might as well get our use out of it.”

Connor does after a moment, getting up to sit at Hank’s side, sighing when Hank wraps an arm around him and pulls him into him. He runs his fingers through Connor’s hair like he used to when he was trying to calm him down and still his mind. 

“You are better,” Hank says softly. “I mean, I’m not...I’m not trying to say you’re okay, or ignore anything, because that shit isn’t helpful, but you’re also being a little unfair to yourself.”

“Yeah, well,” Connor says softly, trying to manage a wry tone, “what else is new?” 

Hank is quiet for a moment, leaning his cheek on the top of Connor’s head, and Connor closes his eyes, breathing him on. “You’ve gotten better about talking about this,” Connor says softly, which is sort of what he means - Hank is better, and he isn’t.

Hank shrugs. “Learned some shit in therapy, I guess.” He squeezes Connor’s shoulder. “You want to make out?”

Connor’s own laughter surprises him, punched out of him before he can even give it any thought. “You learn that in therapy, too?”

“No,” Hank says, grinning and elbowing Connor. “I learned that from you.” His face softens, and he says, “If it still helps, I mean.”

That’s the thing about the way Connor was made - his processors move so quickly, making his mind so overactive, so impossible for him to escape, and physical stimulation is the only thing that can overwhelm his systems enough to just make it stop, even if it’s only for a little while.

Hank is, still, the only one he’s ever told about that, too.

Connor would roll his eyes when Hank pats his lap, except that he’s too turned on about it, half-hard already at the thought of crawling into it, so instead he just shifts to seat himself on Hank’s thighs, bending to kiss him.

“Yeah,” Connor says softly when they part. “It still helps.”

He doesn’t tell him that it helps most when it’s Hank touching him, mostly because his hands and his mouth are busy right now.

But he will.

Later, he will.

Because that’s the difference, maybe, the crucial one - before, Connor needing him just made Hank feel inadequate, because he knew he couldn’t be there for him the way Connor needed, and so Connor would always try to stifle and bury that impulse. But maybe he doesn’t have to anymore, and maybe that means things really will be okay if they want them to be, like Hank said, that it really is just distance, a small thing even if it felt insurmountable to Connor only this morning. 

And isn’t that something?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is finished and I'm hoping to have the last chapter up within the next week, but I am managing a few difficult personal situations right now, so I'll apologize in advance if I don't make that happen and it's another three weeks before this is updated!
> 
> Thank you all for the kind comments on the first chapter, also - I know I haven't had a chance to respond to them, but they do mean a lot to me! <3
> 
> I'm on [Twitter](http://twitter.com/Jolli_Bean) all the time and on [Tumblr](http://jolli-bean.tumblr.com) now and then. Come chat with me!


	3. for as long as we have

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the end, Connor was the one who saw it going the way it did. They sat beside each other on that flight to Detroit, holding hands, when Connor looked over at Hank and said, “I think it’s going to be a bestseller. Your book, I mean. I think them canceling the rest of your tour ensured it.”

Once they’ve settled into their hotel room in Philadelphia later that morning, another luxury room that rivals the one in D.C., Connor sits on the edge of the bed and watches Hank pull his hair back in the bathroom. “Are you sure you want me to come today?” he asks. “I can keep myself busy.”

Connor is feeling better - he’s remembered now how good Hank could be at quieting his racing mind sometimes even if he didn’t realize he had forgotten. But he still knows that all it takes is the wrong person seeing them walk into the signing together for Hank to spend an entire event that should be about him fielding questions about Connor instead. And even beyond well-intentioned curiosity, Connor knows there’s a difference between people enjoying a fictional story about an android and seeing a revolution leader sitting among them. There’s a reason he was quiet at the signing in D.C., a reason he came in late and immediately sat down, making himself small and unassuming in the way he’s carefully practiced.

He doesn’t want to be a distraction from Hank’s success.

“Do you want to come?” Hank asks from the bathroom. 

“It’s not about what I want.”

Hank is quiet as he finishes with his hair - it’s actually unfair, Connor thinks, that he’s gotten hotter somehow - and then he comes out of the bathroom to stand in front of Connor, nudging the toe of Connor’s shoe with his. 

“Yeah, it is,” Hank says. 

Connor smiles as he rolls his eyes. “It’s your tour, and your book, actually.”

“Okay.” Hank shrugs. “I want you to come,  _ if  _ you want to.”

Connor doesn’t like when Hank pins him down like this - he didn’t like it two years ago, and he doesn’t like it now - but he dislikes it in the same way people sometimes dislike things that are good for them, that they need in their life, only because they require an uncomfortable stretch. Connor thinks about what he wants with more frequency these days than he did years ago, but he still doesn’t always feel like it matters enough to talk about, and especially not to ask for from somebody. That’s the odd part of being built not to want anything, not to have a single desire, and growing from there. The programming is background in androids these days, but that doesn’t mean it goes away. 

But Hank is looking at him expectantly with his hair tied back and his reading glasses - also new, also hot, in Connor’s opinion - tucked into the neckline of his shirt, so Connor huffs a sigh and says, “I want to come, too.”

Hank smiles and puts his hands on Connor’s face, bending enough that he can kiss his forehead. “Easy enough, then,” he says.

Hank starts back to the bathroom, although he turns back when Connor says, “We should walk in separately, maybe.”

“Connor,” Hank says. “We’re together. We’ll walk in together.” 

He says it resolutely enough that it doesn’t leave much room for argument, so Connor doesn’t say anything else. Instead he just gets up and wraps his arms around Hank’s waist from behind, leaning his forehead against his shoulder.

“I missed you,” he says softly.

He missed the ways he and Hank were similar, the ways they inherently understood each other, but even more than that, he missed the ways they were different, the way Hank made up his mind so quickly and was so sure while Connor’s code made his own thoughts race.

Connor needs that.

Hank twists far enough in Connor’s arms that he can wrap an arm around his shoulders and pull Connor in to kiss him, and it takes every ounce of Connor’s processing power to stop himself from fisting his fingers in Hank’s hair and messing it up when Hank slips his tongue into his mouth.

Connor is running preconstructions to ascertain whether he can get away with shoving Hank back onto the bed without making him late for his signing - because while he does miss his more Hank-ish shirts, the cable-knit sweaters and the hair and the reading glasses are also really doing it for him - when Hank pulls away from him and takes Connor’s face in his hands, looking at him with a small, warm smile.

“You know I missed you too,” he says softly, and Connor smiles, smoothing a hand over the pattern of Hank’s sweater. 

“Yeah,” he says, and if he sounds a little too smug, just a hint too pleased with himself, he can’t help it. “I know.”

Hank kisses him again and says, “We should get going, probably.” He taps Connor’s yellow LED. “You okay?”

“Just trying to figure out if we have time for me to suck you off before we go,” Connor says, shrugging, and Hank laughs at that.

“Maybe, but probably not enough for me to return the favor.” He squeezes Connor’s hand. “When we get back.”

“Oh, fine,” Connor says, faking a pout as he retrieves his coat from the bed. “You look hot. Just so you know.”

“You think?” Hank asks, looking at himself in the mirror again like he doesn’t quite see it.

“Yes,” Connor says pointedly.

“Huh.” Hank shrugs, turning away and starting towards the door. He reaches back for Connor’s hand when Connor follows after him, and Connor takes it with a smile.

And they walk into the bookstore the same way when they get there, hand in hand, because Hank doesn’t let Connor go. 

Connor sits at the front of the room this time instead of tucking himself away like he did in D.C., and he doesn’t go unnoticed as people start filtering in. He’s used to it - it happens everywhere he goes, the long looks and sidelong glances in his direction. It comes with the usual discomfort, and the added concern that this is going to negatively affect Hank’s signing...but there’s also an unexpected effect, Connor realizes, which is that he  _ likes _ that people know he’s with Hank.

And nothing goes wrong as the event goes on, really, except for the fact that so many people plainly know who Connor is and wonder what he’s doing there, some of them with more evident discomfort than others. Connor and Hank weren’t trying to keep their relationship a secret before, exactly, but there wasn’t really the occasion to tell anyone beyond Jeff and Markus and North, either. There certainly wasn’t any reason it would have been public knowledge beyond their friends. Everybody knows Hank and Connor were partners during the revolution, but now it’s certainly easy enough to draw other conclusions, and apply them to Hank’s book. 

Connor admittedly feels like he’s more concerned about that than Hank is, but he’s proud of what Hank accomplished, and he loves his book, and he thinks what Hank has done deserves to exist beyond them. He doesn’t want their relationship to be the story instead of Hank’s novel, not when Hank deserves every ounce of attention and praise he might get for his work.

But nobody asks Hank about Connor - perhaps Connor didn’t factor in that people may be afraid to ask right in front of him - and Connor thinks they’re mostly free and clear beyond whatever speculating everyone here will do in their own homes, until the woman who lingers during the signing portion, talking to Hank well after he’s done with her book.

Connor listens even though he probably shouldn’t, realizes she’s a reporter with some Philadelphia-based culture magazine, and that she’s absolutely asking Hank about the nature of their relationship.

“We’re together,” Hank says, shrugging, which is both very touching and also nowhere near what Connor would have had him say, which is a simple, “I don’t see how that’s relevant.”

“Is he the same one you worked with during the revolution?” the woman asks.

“Yeah,” Hank says. “If you have any other questions, you can feel free to contact me through my publisher. We need to keep this line moving.” 

Hank is  _ very _ good at sounding amiable even when his patience is thin, especially to someone who doesn’t know him. The reporter thanks him and moves along with no idea that she’s been dismissed.

Connor tries to put her out of his mind just as easily, even if the concern about her angle lingers.

Hank, predictably, isn’t concerned about it - he shrugs when Connor mentions it to him in the car. “So she writes that we’re together, and surmises that our relationship influenced the story,” he says. “So what? Both of those things are accurate.”

Connor sighs. “Most people don’t  _ like _ me, Hank. And if they think your book is about me, they may decide they dislike that, too.” 

It’s a more frank answer than the one Connor gave him yesterday, when he made some shoddy excuse about his concerns about how an association between the two of them, and Hank’s book, may affect his own work with Markus and the others, even though that isn’t a concern for him at all.

Hank just shrugs. “I like you, though.”

Connor lets out an exasperated huff, turning his seat around and pushing Hank into the back of the car, climbing into his lap and kissing him a little roughly because he thinks Hank is so fucking sweet but he’s also frustrated by him right now.

“I want,” he says, pausing to kiss Hank again and nip at his lower lip, “your book...to do well...and people will find a way to criticize it...if they think it’s about me.” He tightens his fingers in Hank’s hair and says, “I care about that even if you don’t.”

Hank tilts his head and looks at Connor with a small smile on his face. 

“What?” Connor asks, and Hank laughs and kisses the corner of his mouth.

“Nothing,” he says. “You just care about this so much more than I do. If people like the book, or don’t like it, or change their mind if they know about you...I really don’t give a shit. I’m not trying to pander to anyone or pretend about anything to make people more comfortable.”

Connor sighs, leaning his forehead against Hank’s and resting there before he kisses him again. “Not having to care is a luxury, you know,” he says softly. 

He loves that Hank doesn’t care what anyone thinks, but he  _ always _ has to, every day. He has to think about how every single person in the room is perceiving him, because someone might hurt him, or because they might vote politicians in who will stand against any progress they try to make every step of the way. He doesn’t want to pander either, but he also doesn’t have much choice.

Connor is always thinking about it, always.

Hank doesn’t argue. He just smooths Connor’s hair back and says, “I know, baby. I know. But I mean...a lot of people like the book. And I think they would like you, too.”

Connor leans back in Hank’s lap, putting his hands on his thighs to stabilize himself. Hank didn’t ask, but he feels like he needs to explain. “It’s not...” he starts, and Hank squeezes his hand. “It’s not that I think everyone is shitty. I don’t. Three quarters of the volunteers I work with are humans. It’s just that change is hard, and it hurts, and I’ve found that overwhelmingly, people don’t want to change. They want us to have work and a home right up until us having basic privileges means they lose a few of their extra ones. They want to share the wealth in principle, but they don’t  _ really  _ want to share. Markus and Josh deal with that every single day with their advocacy work...we all do. And I know you don’t care about your personal success, but I do, and I wish you would, too. You deserve good things.”

Hank squeezes Connor’s hip. “I care about you,” he says. “Actually. I was barely even trying to publish the thing, or to be an author...it’s not a goal I’m attached to in the least. I just...wanted to process my feelings for you.” Hank takes his hand. “You’re important to me, and I’m proud of you, and of the parts of you that are in that book, and...I don’t know. If being honest about that means people change their minds about the book and it flops, then it flops. But I also don’t think that’s a foregone conclusion, either.”

Hank has this uncanny ability to make complicated situations sound simple, and an even more uncanny ability to make Connor believe, despite his preconstruction software predicting hundreds of different outcomes and his own lived knowledge to the contrary, that they are.

It makes saline tears prick the corners of Connor’s eyes, because it’s been a long time since he saw anything other than the long road towards progress ahead of them, since he’s done anything more than take five steps back for every one forward, and now...he wants Hank’s book to succeed, thinks Hank deserves it, but it’s also sort of intoxicating for Hank to tell him it doesn’t matter. He’s leaning on Hank for it, of course - everything Connor does himself will always matter - but it lifts something from his shoulders all the same, some burden he’s been laboring under for years, just for right now.

Maybe it really doesn’t matter. Maybe he can just...lean on Hank, and care a little less.

Hank squeezes Connor’s hand again and says, “If you really don’t want me to say we’re together, I won’t.”

“No,” Connor says softly. “It’s okay.” He forcibly sets the thought processes and preconstructions about the possible negative outcomes aside, even if it takes a manual override on his part. He runs his fingers through Hank’s beard and says, “Are we together?”

Hank smiles at that. “I don’t know what else you would call it.”

Connor smooths Hank’s collar and shrugs. “You can say I’m your partner. If you want to, if that feels right.” 

It’s what Connor used to be to Hank, and he’s entirely aware that he broke up with the last man he was dating for daring to call himself Connor’s boyfriend, but this just...feels different.

It’s Hank, and so it’s different. 

Hank kisses him again, threading his fingers in Connor’s hair. “Yeah,” he says. “I can call you that.” He pats Connor’s hip and says, “You want to go somewhere nice for dinner?”

“Aw.” Connor tilts his head, smiling. “You trying to take me out on a date, Hank?” 

Hank kisses the hinge of his jaw. “Yeah, I am.”

They didn’t go out much when they were dating before. In some ways that was because the streets were volatile, and though Connor could handle himself, it was also easier to avoid situations where he may have to, when he might be verbally or physically accosted. He didn’t want Hank to get in trouble defending him, either, like he knew Hank would, so Hank picked up a lot of takeout during those months, and ordered a lot of carry out, and occasionally, when Connor could convince him, he went grocery shopping with a list Connor put together so Connor could cook for him - a gesture Hank had trouble accepting with much frequency at the time, because he wanted to take care of Connor and didn’t quite know what to do with Connor taking care of him.

It was only towards the end that Connor was starting to go out more, and even then they didn’t go to nice restaurants often, because of course Connor couldn’t consume anything, and Hank wasn’t comfortable asking him to sit there doing nothing.

Connor actually liked it the one time they did go. He liked getting dressed up, liked Hank doing the same, liked sitting across the table from him and talking to him - so many of their conversations at the time, good and difficult, happened on the couch, or in bed, and Connor liked being able to see Hank’s whole face. 

He told Hank he enjoyed it, that he’d like to do it again, but Hank was out of work at the time and living on savings...and that was only two weeks before they broke up, anyway.

Hank remembers that request, maybe, that Connor liked going out, or maybe as he’s gotten better he’s come to like it more than he used to, too. Maybe a bit of both.

Either way, Connor rests his arms on Hank’s shoulders and nods. “I’d like that.”

“You want to go back to the hotel and get changed? I’ll call around and see if we can get reservations somewhere.”

Connor smiles and says, “Okay.”

Going back to the hotel gives Connor the opportunity to dig through his comically overstuffed suitcase - which he’s going to show Hank later, because he knows Hank is going to think it’s just as funny as he does. He listens to Hank making a reservation somewhere while he changes in the bathroom, pulling the pair of white silk panties with the big bow on the back on under his suit - the tails of the jacket are enough to disguise the lines from the bow, which is fortunate, because Connor thinks Hank will like the underwear, if he knows him at all. 

He’s reaching for the door before a thought holds him back, one that has him rummaging through his suitcase again for the little inhibitor disk. He tosses it like his coin when he finds it, and then opens his neck port to slot it into place.

He’s used some of its features before, and he likes the way it safely prolongs the night without muting anything he’s feeling, and he wants to use it with Hank, desperately.

“Hey,” Hank says when he steps out of the bathroom, and fuck, he looks nice. “What?” he asks when Connor just looks at him, shifting from one foot to the other in a familiar way, a subtle but telltale sign of his slight discomfort under Connor’s close scrutiny.

“Nothing,” Connor says quickly, clearing his throat. “I’ve just never actually seen you in a suit.” He’s not even sure Hank owned one that fit properly when they were together. 

“Oh,” Hank says. “It’s new. For the tour, you know. Just in case. It looks okay, right?”

Connor raises an eyebrow. “How do you not know when you look hot? How is that possible?”

Hank shrugs, grinning a little. “Years of practice, I guess. Let’s go.”

Connor spends the car ride calibrating the software from the disk in his neck to Hank’s voice without Hank having any idea, lacing the two of them together. The voice command features are optional, and Connor has never used them with anyone else - some androids like that, being objectified and told what to do, but Connor has never felt like it’s reclaiming his trauma or anything the same way they do.

Now, though...hell if he doesn’t want his body to do whatever Hank asks it to, as if it’s his. It’s not a new fantasy on his part, either - he used to want this sort of thing from Hank before, too, but android sex toys, for lack of a better term, weren’t widely manufactured yet.

It’s odd, Connor thinks, the way he can oscillate between wanting complete control and wanting to give that control up entirely so he doesn’t even have to think. Odd how both can feel healing in different circumstances.

Maybe the lack of control is just what he wants right now because he’s been on the other side of the spectrum before - frequently over the last few years, in fact. He’s almost always been more comfortable calling the shots, and anyone who hasn’t let him wasn’t someone Connor kept seeing for long afterwards.

And Connor is tired of thinking, tired of keeping his guard up. He’s tired of wondering why men want him and like him, if it’s for the reasons he wants them to or the ones he doesn’t. He still wants vulnerability from Hank, too, but that’s a separate issue...although Connor is good with creative solutions, and he thinks he might have a way to meet both needs tonight, if Hank is up for it.

And Connor  _ does  _ hope he’s up for it, but he’s also pretty sure he will be.

He still tries to enjoy dinner, to be present in the moment even if his body is thrumming with anticipation. Going out with Hank like this is still a relatively new experience, and one Connor wants just as badly.

“You’re sure it doesn’t bother you if I drink in front of you?” he asks Hank once they’re seated in the dimly lit fondue restaurant.

Hank moves the candle on the table so he can reach across it for Connor’s hand. “Yeah, it’s not much temptation,” he says, vaguely amused. “Wine and fruity shit never did anything for me anyway.”

“I drink beer and whiskey sometimes,” Connor says primly, but he orders a sangria anyway, because if ‘fruity shit’ is better, then he’s happy enough to drink it instead. Hank isn’t wrong that he prefers something sweeter - it’s easier on the sensitive processors in his mouth, burning less.

Hank runs his thumb absently over Connor’s knuckles while he reads the menu with his fucking reader glasses, which Connor still thinks make him hotter somehow - an incredible feat, really, in Connor’s opinion.

It’s the candlelight or it’s how good Hank looks in his suit, or it’s the way Hank is looking at him or the knowledge that Connor has every intention of putting himself entirely in Hank’s hands later tonight...it’s some of it, or it’s all of it, but Connor still squeezes Hank’s fingers when Hank shows him a picture Jeff texted him of Sumo and says, “I still love you.”

Connor always chooses his words carefully, and this isn’t any different.  _ Still  _ means he never quite stopped, and he knows now that he didn’t.

The table they’re sitting at is private, high walls on either side, but Connor is reasonably sure Hank would lean across and kiss him like he does even if it wasn’t. Connor can taste the chocolate from dessert, at once bitter and sweet, on his mouth.

When they part, Hank lifts Connor’s hand, kissing his palm, and then his wrist. “I’ve always loved you,” he says softly. 

And if Connor isn’t mistaken, Hank’s eyes are glassy when he says it, just a bit, even though he’s never really known Hank to cry. The only time Connor ever saw him tear up was at Chicken Feed, the morning after everything. 

But things change, Connor supposes.

Things change, and others stay the same, and that is, at its core, a comforting thought. 

Connor lets Hank get the bill without argument, and afterwards, when they stand outside waiting for the valet to bring the rental car around, Connor slips his arms under Hank’s suit jacket and tucks himself in close to him. “Hi,” he says softly, leaning up to kiss the corner of Hank’s mouth.

Hank smiles and pushes Connor’s hair out of his face when the cool wind leaves it disheveled. “You want to go anywhere else while we’re out?”

Connor takes Hank’s tie in his hand and gives it a little tug. “Not really,” he says, and he nips Hank’s jaw just in case his meaning wasn’t already perfectly clear, enjoying the soft hiss Hank lets out as he leaves a little mark in his wake.

And Hank wants him, too - the first thing he does once he has the car’s navigation set to the hotel’s address is to reach for Connor and pull him in to kiss him. “Love you,” Hank whispers against Connor’s mouth when they part, and Connor smiles, taking Hank’s hand and kissing his palm even if Hank tries to reach for him again.

“Love you,” he says softly, taking Hank’s fingers between his. “I want to tell you what’s going to happen when we get back to the hotel, if you’re agreeable.”

Hank looks amused by that, even if Connor doesn’t miss the flush in his cheeks, either. “Okay,” he says. “I’ll tell you right now that I’m agreeable, though.”

Connor leans across the console to nip Hank’s ear before he whispers into it, “Right now, there’s a disk in my neck port that’s going to stop me from coming unless you tell me to. If you tell me to do anything - if you want me on my knees, or my back, or if you want me to suck your cock, I’ll do it without thinking. You understand?”

“Jesus,” Hank chokes out. “Yes.”

Connor traces the hinge of his neck port under his synthskin and says, “I know you don’t have one of these, but I want you to be good for me. You can’t overload the same way I can, but I don’t want you to touch yourself, or to have me touch you, until I tell you that you can.” He kisses Hank’s cheek sweetly in the same moment he reaches between Hank’s legs to press the heel of his hand against his hardening cock. “You with me?”

“Yeah,” Hank groans. “Fuck, you got any other rules, baby?”

“Yes,” Connor says softly. “Don’t go easy on me.”

Hank nudges his hips up into Connor’s palm, but Connor removes his hand from his lap and sits back in his own seat, although he does still keep their fingers laced together. “Oh, fuck you,” Hank says, amused, and Connor shrugs innocently.

“Rules are rules.”

“Fuck,” Hank says, leaning his head back against the seat rest. “You’re going to kill me, you know that?”

“What a way to go, though.” Connor grins when Hank elbows him.

It’s a fortunate thing for both of them that the drive back to the hotel is a short one. Connor manages to keep his composure held together during the elevator ride up to their room, although he figures he’s been just about good enough when they reach their door and Hank has to dig through his pockets for the key. Connor slips himself between Hank and the wall, kissing his neck while he looks for it. His fingers brush Hank’s reader glasses in his pocket, and he thinks without trying to about climbing into Hank’s lap while he’s reading before bed, about riding him while he’s wearing them...

“Jesus,” Hank says when Connor nips his neck at the thought, more to himself than to Connor.

Connor smiles, glancing at Hank sorting through his wallet before he whispers, “Hurry up,” and nudges his thigh between Hank’s.

It’s half a miracle Hank doesn’t break the key card in half with the way he shoves it into the door. 

Connor is laughing when Hank pushes him inside, pressing him back against the wall and pulling Connor into his arms so he can kiss him. “That thing in your neck,” he says when they part, and Connor raises an eyebrow, pleased. “Is it on?”

Connor’s LED spins yellow, and then he nods. “Yeah,” he says softly. “What do you want me to do?”

Hank puts his hands on Connor’s face and kisses his forehead. “Take this off,” he says, plucking at Connor’s jacket.

And Connor’s body responds to Hank’s voice immediately, shrugging out of his suit. 

Connor is at once glad that he never used this function with anyone else and even more glad that he trusted Hank with it. It’s thrilling, for his body to respond to Hank’s voice without Connor moving it, the same way it used to with a programmer giving commands - that’s  _ why _ it feels so good, because it’s replicating something that was dehumanizing and making it safe, making it  _ good _ .

Hank watches the expression on Connor’s face as Connor looks at his suit jacket on the floor in a quiet sort of awe. “You okay?” he asks.

Connor nods quickly. “Yeah,” he breathes, and he means it. His preconstruction software is blissfully inactive with the disk in place, too - there’s no need for it when he’s hanging on Hank’s words instead. His mind still isn’t quiet, exactly - it never is - but...it feels good, like floating somewhere outside himself, like a high...

“You can still move on your own too, right?”

It’s a fair question on Hank’s part - Connor has been standing completely still since he dropped his jacket on the floor. “Yes,” he says. “I just...I’ll do what you tell me.”

“A novel concept,” Hank says, catching Connor by the wrist with a grin when Connor swats at him and kissing him again. “Go get on the bed, baby.”

Connor unbuttons his shirt as he goes, dropping it from his shoulders and kicking out of his shoes and his pants. He honestly almost forgot about the underwear.

Almost, until Hank is right behind him as he lies back on the bed, nudging Connor’s legs apart and slipping a finger under the silk waistline.

“Fuck, baby,” he whispers, and Connor smiles, pleased, winding his arms around Hank’s neck and kissing his jaw. “Here, turn over. Let me see.” 

What Connor likes about this, too, is that Hank has to tell him what he wants, what he likes...Hank has never had trouble being talkative, but it’s always about how Connor looks, how he feels, about what  _ Connor _ wants. It’s a certain type of unfamiliar vulnerability, even if Connor is the one physically at Hank’s mercy.

And Connor loves it, he really does. He’s thinking as he shuffles onto his hands and knees that this is maybe the peak of his brilliance, and they’ve barely even started.

Hank doesn’t join Connor on the bed, but he does lean over him, caging him in, his chest warm against Connor’s back when he leans around him to kiss his cheek - a tender gesture, but not a particularly innocent one, since he also uses the moment to rock his hard cock against the back of Connor’s thigh.

Connor allows it for a moment, because he likes feeling him, but then he reaches up and takes a gentle fistful of Hank’s hair. “You’re forgetting the rules,” he whispers against his lips.

“Sorry,” Hank says. “I didn’t realize fucking dry humping was off the table, too.”

“It is,” Connor says primly, although he does nudge his hips back against Hank’s while he says it, just because he likes being difficult.

“You’re a fucking tease,” Hank says - he’s trying to fake a stern tone, but Connor knows all too well how much Hank likes how merciless he can be.

“Good thing you like being teased, I guess,” Connor says, and he lowers himself down onto his elbows as he does - he’s a prettier picture that way, back arched, ass raised, and Hank doesn’t waste any time squeezing the back of his thigh and sliding his hand up to the line of his underwear. He puts a hand on Connor’s head while he teases his fingers along the stitching, carding his fingers through Connor’s hair while Connor rests his cheek on the comforter.

“You sure I’m not allowed to ask you to touch me?” Hank asks, and the corner of Connor’s mouth lifts in a small smile.

“You can. For the most part.”

Hank slips a hand under the waistband of Connor’s underwear, palming his ass with a warm hand. “But not where it counts.”

Connor’s smile broadens as he opens his eyes to meet Hank’s. “Not until I tell you to. I’d like to be able to do  _ this _ to you instead, make you come over and over, again and again, but the human body has its limitations, so I have to get creative about the ways I torture you.”

Hank bends to kiss Connor’s cheek again, and this time he’s good about not rutting into him. “But I can tell you to come whenever I want.”

Connor winks. “That  _ is _ the game.”

“And you will, if I tell you to.”

“Yes,” Connor says, starting to lift himself up into his hands so he can see more of Hank over his shoulder. “Why...”

He doesn’t make it far off his elbows, because suddenly Hank is against him again, a comforting weight pressed into him as he puts his lips by Connor’s ear and says, voice low, “Then come for me, baby.”

Connor can’t control the cry that tears itself from its throat as he comes untouched in his silk panties, or the way he would crumble against the bed if Hank didn’t get an arm around him to hold him up. It feels good, it feels  _ the same _ as if it hadn’t been commanded, and Connor’s chest heaves under Hank’s hand as he catches his breath.

“Fuck,” he groans. 

Hank takes Connor’s chin in his hand so he can tilt his face to kiss him - Connor can feel the smile on Hank’s face when he does, just a little smug. “Just testing it out,” he says, amused. “You good?”

“Yeah, fuck,” Connor whispers. “I’m good.”

Hank folds Connor up in his arms and then lays them both down. He’s gracious enough to give Connor a moment, although Connor only takes about half of one before he’s twisting in Hank’s arms and pulling at his jacket. “You should take this off,” he says. “And the rest of it.” 

He’s planning to string Hank along for a while, but he still wants to look at him.

Hank sits up far enough that he can shrug out of his jacket, but Connor is behind him a moment later, shifting so he can unbutton Hank’s shirt for him, because he wants to do it, to strip him down...he pushes Hank back onto the bed so he can work his pants over his hips.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Connor says, kissing the curve of Hank’s belly as he moves, “because you know I thought you were hot before...but you’ve gotten hotter.”

Hank reaches down to card his fingers through Connor’s hair. “If you say so,” he says, although it dies in a small groan when Connor pulls his boxers down and takes the head of Hank’s cock into his mouth, hollowing his cheeks around it in a mean tease as Hank’s fingers tighten in his hair.

He lets him go just as quickly, straddling Hank’s belly instead so Hank won’t be able to rock into him and putting his hands on his chest.

“You’re mean,” Hank says dryly, and Connor grins as he bends to kiss him.

“You were first.”

Hank pats the empty space on the bed beside him, and Connor flops into it, looking at Hank expectantly as he twists to lie on his side and face him. “Take these off for me, baby,” Hank says, slipping a finger under the waistband of Connor’s underwear and letting it snap back against Connor’s skin.

Connor doesn’t know what’s hotter - the sight of Hank lying there naked, or the feeling of Hank’s eyes on him as he slips the underwear down his legs, his cock already hard again where it rests against his belly.

Hank runs a finger up Connor’s side that Connor can’t help but arch into, even if it’s just the faintest touch. “I haven’t really gotten to look at you,” he says softly, and Connor shifts under his gaze.

Connor supposes they  _ were _ moving a little fast the other times they’ve done this. “And?” he asks softly. He’s holding his breath, and he doesn’t even know why.

“And I think you’re just as gorgeous as you’ve always been.”

Connor can’t properly explain why that matters to him, after all his anxiety about getting the upgrade, about making himself palatable for people, helping them to imagine he wasn’t an android. He said he thinks Hank has gotten hotter, but he’s relieved Hank thinks he’s the same. More than that, he  _ believes _ Hank when he says it. And that matters.

Hank wraps an arm around Connor and kisses his temple before he whispers, “Touch yourself for me. I want to watch you.”

They used to do this, before. The drinking made it difficult for Hank to perform some nights, and Connor could always see the frustration on his face as he tried. He still remembers gently pushing Hank onto his back one night when it just wasn’t coming, straddling his hips and opening his own neck port and whispering, “It’s okay. Just...watch me,” as he tried to offer him another way to escape, a way to keep his mind occupied at least if his body wouldn’t cooperate.

It seems Hank remembers, too, Connor thinks as he wraps a hand around himself immediately, stroking himself the way he likes. 

Hank noses into his hair, kissing his temple and breathing against Connor’s skin where he’s leaning against him. Connor whines softly, more at the way Hank lazily rolls his nipple between his fingers than his own hand on himself, but it’s certainly a bit of both. 

Connor is sorely tempted to throw all of his own rules out the window, to tell Hank to touch himself too so Connor can watch him, or just to tell Hank to forget it all and fuck him...but nobody could ever say Connor didn’t have stamina, or that he’s one to run from a challenge, especially one of his own making.

By some miracle, he manages to hold onto that determination when he bites down on his own fist to stifle a moan and Hank says, “Put your hand down, sweetheart; don’t hurt yourself,” and then proceeds to slip two of his fingers into Connor’s mouth instead.

Connor doesn’t care how desperate he seems - he moans loudly enough that Hank’s fingers don’t do a thing to muffle it, rolling his hips upward as he strokes himself more firmly, a little faster. Not like it matters - he can’t reach the thing he’s chasing without Hank letting him, no matter how close to the edge he is.

And judging by the lazy, sort of smug smile on Hank’s face, he isn’t planning to let up any time soon.

No, he’s actually planning to push Connor further, because he reaches down, touches Connor’s fingers where they’re wrapped around his cock, and then lower, between his legs, teasing his slick entrance.

Connor doesn’t mean to bite down on Hank’s fingers, even if he does it gently, but that also doesn’t stop him. Hank just looks vaguely amused by it, dipping the tip of a finger into Connor’s hole and then immediately withdrawing it, pressing himself in close to Connor and kissing his cheek.

“Keep going, baby,” he says when Connor’s pace with his hand falters, and Connor makes a noise he can’t describe in response, half mechanical and all desperation. “What?” Hank asks softly. “You want something?”

Connor rolls his eyes around to look at Hank, slipping Hank’s fingers from his mouth just long enough to whisper, “Whatever you want.”

Because that’s the point. The surrender, the trust...those things are the point, what Connor needs, what he’s always needed, even if he hasn’t always known how to admit it.

Hank tilts Connor’s chin up so he can kiss him as he slips a finger inside him and curls it to hit that bundle of sensors, much more than a tease this time, even if it still isn’t enough. Connor lifts his hips, his hand faltering on his cock again, trying to get Hank closer even as he pulls back again.

“You have more in you, don’t you?” Hank asks softly, because he knows, more than anybody he knows how Connor likes to be pushed.

And Connor does want to come, but he wants to be good, for Hank and for himself, even more, so he nods against him, and Hank kisses him again.

“I love you,” Hank whispers into his hair, holding Connor close. “You’re so incredible...”

Connor would say it back if he could, if his systems weren’t starting to stutter, if his eyelids weren’t fluttering like they do when he’s processing an overwhelming amount of information, because this _ is _ overwhelming in its own way.

He grasps Hank’s thigh, all he can reach, and squeezes, because it’s the best he can do, and Hank kisses him again and whispers, “I know, baby. I know.”

There’s a saline tear forming in the corner of Connor’s eye, and whether it’s from desperation or happiness or something else entirely, he can’t say.

He just knows it’s good.

And Hank keeps pushing him, keeps driving Connor towards an edge he can’t reach on his own, pressing into him and curling his fingers inside him until Connor is making a noise somewhere between a moan and a sob, with all of the desperation of both.

“Please,” Connor breathes, voice breaking, and Hank knows Connor is as committed to the game as he is, that he wouldn’t ask if he wasn’t at his limit, hand shaking where it’s wrapped around his cock, eyelids fluttering as he tries to keep up.

Hank reaches for Connor’s hand where he’s fucking his fist, gently closing his fingers around Connor’s wrist and pulling him away. Connor whines, more at the loss of Hank’s fingers inside him than anything, but it’s all too much to take.

Hank kisses his forehead soothingly, smoothing Connor’s hair back from his face. “I’m going to put my mouth on you,” he whispers against Connor’s temple, “and when I do, you’re going to come for me again.”

Connor nods against him, a bit frantic, and Hank kisses his hair one more time before he shifts, moving down the bed to settle between Connor’s legs, lifting one of Connor’s knees over his shoulder.

He looks like he wants to tease, but he doesn’t, and Connor is endlessly grateful for it when Hank takes his cock in his mouth, letting Connor rock his hips up into him when he comes down Hank’s throat with a weak sob.

Connor has always felt ambivalent about the upgrade, if he’s being honest - it was recommended if he wanted to drink, which he did, and there are certainly advantages to it, but god, he’s never felt like he was really missing out on something without it until he learned a few days ago that Hank swallows. 

Connor doesn’t pass out - he usually needs Hank in his wires for that - but he almost thinks he might as he lies there, LED spinning red, trying to catch his breath. Hank’s mouth is still on him, although he isn’t moving, just letting Connor rest there for a few moments while he rubs his hip.

When Hank finally pulls off of him, he shifts up the length of Connor’s body, his weight over him always a welcome comfort, wrapping his arms around him and kissing him.

“Hey,” he says, voice soft and fond, kissing Connor’s LED. “Take a minute, okay?” 

Connor nods, mouth dry. He can feel Hank’s cock hard against his belly, and he shifts against it, almost involuntarily.

“Can I do something for you?” he asks, and Hank smiles.

“Probably not much that isn’t going to make me go off like a shot, baby.”

Connor smiles, too. “I’ll be careful.” He kisses Hank again and then shifts under him, rolling them over so they’re lying on their sides. He pinches one of Hank’s nipples between his fingers and catches Hank’s groan in his mouth before he guides Hank onto his stomach.

Connor knows there aren’t many ways he can touch him sexually, at least not without ending the game, but there are so many other ways he can put his hands on him, and so many other things Hank needs. He shifts so he can put a hand on the back of Hank’s thigh, and then his calf.

There’s tension there - Connor knew there would be - and he sets to work gently kneading it out.

“I thought the game was wrecking each other,” Hank says into his pillow, and Connor smiles.

“We can call it an intermission.”

He’s too proud to admit it, but he needs one.

Hank is quiet for a moment while Connor works him over, although after another passes he says, “What else do you have in your suitcase?”

Connor laughs, leaning over him and kissing his shoulder. “So much. I was going to show it to you later. It’s comical.”

Hank lifts his head to look at Connor, amused. “Like what?”

“More lingerie than I was ever going to need for a week,” Connor says. “A few other toys.”

“What’s the weirdest one?”

“ _ This _ isn’t weird enough for you?” 

“It is,” Hank says. “But I know you’re a freak, baby.”

The weirdest thing in Connor’s suitcase is the external program that simulates someone fucking him, with wireless controls that Connor thought he might hand off to Hank over dinner one night, or maybe at one of his signings. It interfaces with his memory, so it would have felt like Hank...

Connor kisses Hank again and then gets up, retreating to the bathroom to retrieve the disk from his suitcase and dropping it into Hank’s hand. It’s small, about the size of a quarter, and discreet - Hank turns it over, but then he looks at Connor and says, “I don’t get it.”

“I know,” Connor says, grinning. “But you will.”

He tosses the disk and catches it before setting it on the table and climbing back into bed at Hank’s side. “You ready to go again?” Hank asks, wrapping an arm around him.

Connor lies back against his pillow, grasping Hank’s arm where it’s draped over his chest. “Almost,” he says softly. “I want you to do something for me first.”

“Yeah?”

Connor sits up to close the distance between them, touching his forehead to Hank’s and saying, “I want you to touch yourself for me first. And I want you to stop when I tell you to.”

Connor knows Hank is better, can see that he hates himself less. There have been glimpses that have made him hope Hank will let him love him the way Connor wants to, the way Hank wasn’t entirely ready to accept two years ago.

What happens here won’t change anything - Connor loves him, never stopped loving him, and that won’t change. And he thinks it won’t just take them to the same place they already know, that things are different this time.

But he wants to know it.

And Hank does hesitate. Hank doesn’t quite know how to be watched and wanted, even still. This doesn’t come easily to him, but when Connor whispers, “Please,” and kisses him, Hank kisses him back.

“Fair’s fair, I guess,” he says, and Connor smiles.

“It is.” 

Hank flinches just a bit when Connor pushes the covers down, but he doesn’t stop him. Nor does he stop him when Connor nudges him onto his back and curls up beside him.

“I’m right here,” Connor says softly. “It’s okay.”

“Yeah,” Hank breathes. “I know.”

Connor takes Hank’s hand, because it’s easier, isn’t it, doing things together, and wraps it around Hank’s cock. He keeps his own fingers lightly closed around Hank’s fist, turning his head to press a kiss to Hank’s chest, and he doesn’t unwrap them until Hank starts to move. 

And when he does, Connor lifts his head to watch Hank slowly, a little tentatively, thrust up into his hand.

Connor puts a hand on Hank’s face and kisses him. “I love you,” he whispers. “You’re incredible. You look incredible.” He lazily rolls one of Hank’s nipples between his fingers, smiling when he hears Hank’s breath catch. He traces his fingers over Hank’s chest, over the old bullet scar he knows well, and then over the swell of his stomach, and he takes the lobe of Hank’s ear between his teeth, teasing it for a moment before he breathes, “You’re gorgeous. You’re something out of my wettest dreams.”

Connor knows what he’s doing, that it’s a blow, and he knows it strikes true when Hank groans almost on cue. “Tell me?” Hank asks, voice strained and soft - if Connor was human, he might not have heard him. 

But he isn’t. And he’s so pleased by the turn of events, by Hank lying here without any kind of shield or barrier around him, no clothes, no sheets...he knows this doesn’t come naturally to him, that Hank learned a long time ago that it’s easier to keep himself guarded. 

Old habits are hard to unlearn, but Connor watches Hank’s hand on his cock and thinks that he’s trying, and that he’s happy to reward good behavior.

Connor shifts so he can speak the words right into Hank’s ear, like a secret between them. “I‘ve thought about you when I’m trying to get myself off for years,” he breathes, and he smiles when he sees Hank’s hand tighten around his cock, watches him roll his hips upwards with a little more force. “I think about your cock, and how it feels in my throat.” He takes Hank’s nipple between his fingers again, pinching more intentionally now. The noise Hank makes in response is less a groan and more a whine. “That’s it,” Connor says softly, encouraging him. “I think about the way you smell, and how I smell like you afterwards. I think about your weight, and how it feels on top of me, and I think about how beautiful you are when you come.” Connor sits up, shifting onto his knees. “Keep going,” he says when Hank looks at him questioningly. He moves between Hank’s legs, putting two of his own fingers into his mouth.

He kisses the curve of Hank’s stomach because he can’t help it, and then he holds up his spit-slick fingers where Hank can see them. He reaches between Hank’s legs, tracing a finger around his rim. It’s not the first time they’ve done this, but it wasn’t as common of an occurrence as Connor might have liked it to be. 

A lot of reasons for that, Connor thinks - shame, exhaustion, embarrassment, a preoccupation with focusing on Connor as they both tried to learn him, because of course sex with an android is different.

Whatever the reasons are, Connor thinks they can be found with both of them. 

But Hank doesn’t stop him, nor does his hand slow where he’s stroking himself, and when he gives Connor the smallest nod, barely perceptible, Connor slowly presses a finger into him.

“Okay?” Connor asks softly, and Hank nods. “I think about this, too - you, stretched around my fingers. The way you’re not synthetic like I am and your body still works to let me in. That’s incredible, you know?”

He thrusts into him a few times, curling his fingers until Hank arches off the bed around him.

“Jesus,” Hank hisses. “I have to tap, baby. I’m going to come.”

Reluctantly, slowly, Connor removes his fingers and lifts Hank’s hand away from his cock, pinning both of his wrists by his head as he straddles his hips and leans over him.

“Tell me to ride you,” Connor whispers, because he wants that sensation one more time, his body moving to do exactly what Hank asks of it.

Connor can hear Hank swallow, hear him breathing in the space between them. He puts a shaking hand on Connor’s hip and says, “Ride me, sweetheart.”

Connor moves without thinking, taking Hank’s cock in his hand and sinking himself down onto it. They both groan at the sensation, and Hank pulls Connor down to kiss him when Connor breathes, almost involuntarily, “I’m so full. Hank...”

Hank pulls him close, holding Connor to his chest and keeping his arms around wrapped tight around him as he fucks up into him.

“Come for me, baby,” Hank whispers. “I want to feel you.”

Connor does, whining as that tight knot wound up inside him loosens, and then letting out a pleased whimper when he feels Hank come inside him a moment later.

“I didn’t tell you you could come,” Connor whispers sleepily, and Hank tightens his arms around him and kisses his neck.

“Sorry,” he says, sheepish, and Connor smiles. 

“I’ll let it slide this time.”

They lie there like that as the minutes tick by, both too tired to move, and though Connor doesn’t pass out entirely, he does drift somewhere in between, floating back and forth.

“Love you, baby,” Hank says softly, running his fingers through Connor’s hair.

“Love you,” Connor whispers. And then, without realizing he decided he was going to say it at all, he adds, “I can’t leave D.C.”

He’s afraid to say it, but he has to. They have to be on even footing.

“I know,” Hank says. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

Connor tucks his head into the crook of Hank’s neck, listening to Hank’s pulse thrum against him for a few moments, like he can ground himself that way. “I don’t know why,” he finally whispers. “I don’t know if it’s because I actually don’t want to leave, or if it’s just because I’m still trying to atone for some of the things I did back in 2038 and feel like I’ve done enough good. I don’t know. Maybe a bit of both.”

“Shit’s complicated,” Hank says softly, and Connor nods against him.

“It is.”

“What would it take?” Hank asks. “For you to feel like you’re good enough?” 

“I don’t know,” Connor whispers. “I don’t know that I ever will.”

Hank runs his fingers through Connor’s hair, thinking, and then he says, “I know it’s not my place to forgive you for some of the shit that happened that week, but...you know I forgive you for the shit that happened between us.” He kisses Connor’s forehead. “I think you’re good.”

Connor isn’t crying, but that does get a little shudder out of him all the same.

“And I mean…” Hank continues. “I literally couldn’t get you to do your fucking job that week, pretty much from the beginning. I don’t think you did as much wrong as you guilt yourself for. I couldn’t get you to catch a deviant for anything.”

Connor huffs a soft laugh at that, turning to bury his face in Hank’s chest. It helps to hear - he’s always held Hank’s opinion in the highest regard, even when he was still working for CyberLife.

“You didn’t really want me to,” Connor says against Hank’s skin. “You’re good, too.”

Hank doesn’t say anything to that, just kisses Connor’s hair again and runs his hand in slow circles over his back, and Connor is happy enough to just drift there with him. 

When Connor finally breaks the silence, it’s to say, “What about your plans with Jeff? The private investigation firm?” He supposes he’s asking Hank if he’s going to give that up, if he’s willing to, and maybe that’s why his throat feels so tight.

“Oh,” Hank says softly. “I shouldn’t have told you about that. I was just...I didn’t want to seem too all in too soon and freak you out, you know? I mean, I was going to take Jeff up on the offer, but those plans didn’t account for you. And...I don’t know. Maybe I do have another book in me. I don’t know.”

Connor lifts his head to look at him. “I hope you do.”

“You really thought it was good, huh?” Hank asks, smiling, and Connor smiles back when he kisses him.

“I really did. And I think you have more to say, too.”

Hank shrugs. “I don’t know about that, but...maybe I’ll try. I can write anywhere, and there’s plenty of appeal to that.” He takes Connor’s hand where it’s resting against his chest. “I could write in D.C.”

“You’d move?” Connor asks, something tentative but hopefully welling inside him. “You love Detroit.”

Hank kisses his hair and says, “Not like I love you.”

Connor is quiet, lost in his feelings and thoughts, long enough that Hank pokes his side and says, “Would you want that?”

Connor thinks about coming home from work to Hank, about Hank slotting into his life and the family he’s established for himself in D.C. - he thinks about how he’s never been quite happy with his life in the city because it always felt like some piece was missing, but of course he could be if that missing piece is fitted in right beside him where it belongs.

“Yeah,” Connor whispers, and now he is crying when he kisses Hank, again and again. “Yes,” he says again when they part, joy bubbling out of him in his laughter.

“Okay,” Hank says, running his thumb over Connor’s cheek. “God, I wasn’t even going to get in touch with you if you didn’t come to my D.C. signing. I’m glad you did.”

“We had unfinished business,” Connor says, and Hank smiles.

“Yeah. We did.” He traces his thumb over the edge of Connor’s neck port. “You want me to help you get that disk out?”

Connor runs his fingers through the grey hair on Hank’s chest, gently enough that Hank lets out a surprised noise when he also pinches his nipple.

“Jesus,” Hank starts. “What are you...”

Connor shrugs as he cuts him off. “I know you’re probably down for the count, but...I could go again. If you wanted to.”

He says it a little sheepishly, but the grin that spreads over Hank’s face is one that Connor wants to keep forever. He taps a finger to his mouth and says, “Get on up here then, baby.”

If Connor spends the next long while with his knuckles white where he grasps the headboard while Hank eats him out, desperate for Hank to tell him he can come and equally desperate for Hank not to take his mouth off of him, thinking about how it was useless for his internal cleaning protocols to run after Hank fucked him because Hank is just making another mess of him, until his whole body is quivering and Hank takes pity on him, if he passes out when Hank shifts him enough that he can say, “Let go, baby,” against the seam on his thigh and the last image in his mind before he does is coming with a weak cry across Hank’s face, then it’s a secret for the two of them.

And he wakes up to Hank holding him, running his fingers through his hair. His startup scan tells him that Hank already removed the inhibitor disk while he was offline.

Connor tucks his face into Hank’s chest and whispers, “Thank you.”

Hank snorts at that. “I think I had as good a time as you did.”

“I don’t get to let go like that,” Connor says softly. “Ever. And sometimes I need...”

He needs not to have to hold himself together all the time, to be something human instead of what CyberLife made him. Hank has done something incredible for him, the same way he always used to, and Connor is already figuring out how to make it up to him.

“I know, baby,” Hank says around a yawn, kissing his forehead. “I know.”

Connor stays awake until he knows Hank is asleep, and then he lets himself slip into stasis. He’s happier than he’s been in years, and for once there’s no anxious fear in him that he might lose this.

Everything just feels...good.

* * *

Hank wakes up before Connor does. 

He does his best not to rouse him, shifting them so he can get out of bed - Connor might technically be self-cleaning, but Hank isn’t, and he probably needs a shower after last night.

There’s a voicemail on his phone that stops him, from Molly, his representation with his publisher.

“Hank, hey,” her voice says when he hits play. “I need you to tell me why we’re fielding questions about your RK800 partner. People are saying he’s been at both signings, and I don’t think...look, my bosses are pissed, okay? Your book is a statement, but Connor is a  _ statement _ , you know? One I’m not sure they want to be making when they serve such a mainstream audience. We took him out of your dedication for a reason, and they’d rather you not bring him to your signings anymore.” She sighs. “Look, I’m in your corner, but there’s not a lot I can do here. Call me back so we can discuss this.” 

Hank is pissed as he sets his phone down.

Not at Molly - Molly is just some kid a few years out of college, not even thirty yet, trying to do her best to get her foot in the door in an industry with job opportunities that just keep diminishing.

The owners, though, the same rich assholes who pulled Connor from the dedication and didn’t give Hank any leverage to barter on that front...

When Hank looks over his shoulder, Connor still hasn’t moved, but his eyes are open. “Morning,” he says softly, and Hank reaches for his hand.

“Hey, baby.” He looks at his phone in his lap. “Did you, uh. Did you hear that?”

“Yeah.” Connor sits up, drawing his knees to his chest and resting his elbows there. “I’m sorry.”

“Shit, no,” Hank says quickly. “Don’t be sorry. They’re the assholes here.”

“I can keep myself busy during your signing this afternoon. It really isn’t a big deal.”

Hank grasps Connor by the back of the neck and kisses his forehead. “Let me call Molly back, alright? See how serious it is.”

Hank twists to sit on the edge of the bed, and Connor shifts closer to him, leaning his cheek on Hank’s shoulder while he dials. 

“Hank?” Molly says when she picks up. “Hey. How are you doing?”

Hank sighs. “How bad is it?”

“Well, management isn’t  _ happy _ , if that’s what you’re asking. They think you should have known better, given their request with the dedication. They’re asking you not to bring Connor to the rest of the signings on the tour.”

“Fuck that; they’re public events.”

“I know. But he’s your guest, and you’re representing them.”

“And what if I bring him anyway?” Hank asks, wincing when Connor prods him hard in his side. “What then?” 

“They’re already saying they don’t want to represent you after this book,” Molly says.

“But for this book. There’s not really anything else they can do to me, is there? They can’t withhold my royalties, and I already have my advance...so what exactly do they think they’re going to do?”

“Hank,” Molly says, “the industry is so small. They’ll make sure you never publish anything else ever again. Don’t push this.”

“Yeah, well...” Hank starts. He’s going to say, “Fuck them, then,” but that’s when Connor rips the phone from his hand and hangs up.

“Stop,” Connor says when Hank looks at him, surprised. “Just stop and think about this before you do anything.”

“I have thought about it. There’s nothing to fucking think about, baby. I spent way too much of my early life closeted to let people tell me I can’t bring my partners somewhere now.” 

Connor shakes his head. “Call back, and apologize, and tell her that I won’t be there this afternoon.”

“Connor...”

“I’m used to this,” Connor says firmly. “The compromise...I’m used to it. It’s just how things are.”

Hank gets it - fuck, it’s just like Connor said yesterday, isn’t it? He has the luxury of not caring, and Connor doesn’t.

Hank takes Connor’s face in his hands. “The book wouldn’t exist without you,” he says. “It’s about us, and people like us...I’m not going to hide that. And I think they’re wrong that having you there will hurt sales, but even if they are...I’ve already hidden enough of you from that book - it’s a disservice to it to do anything more.”

Connor gives him a dim smile. “What good is it going to do?”

“I don’t know. Maybe nothing. But I’ll risk it to find out.”

Connor scoffs at that. “You’re going to blow up your career.” 

“Yeah, well. I told you I was never really trying to be a writer.” Hank squeezes his hand. “Just...come with me anyway. If you want to. I want you to.”

Hank knows Connor is afraid - of hurting him, of hurting Hank’s book, of negatively affecting their progress in D.C...Hank knows. 

But he also knows Connor is brave.

Connor is quiet for a moment, but then he kisses Hank and nods against him. “Okay,” he says, eyes glinting when he smiles. “Fuck them.”

“Fuck them,” Hank echoes, grinning, and he kisses him again.

Connor has been an object of scrutiny long enough, Hank supposes, that he knows how to make himself as untouchable as he can. Hank watches him as he changes in the bathroom, pulling on a blazer and a button down shirt with his jeans, a nicer outfit than he’s worn to either of Hank’s other signings.

“How do I look?” he calls out to Hank while he fusses with his hair in the mirror.

“Like I’m lucky,” Hank says, and he thinks if Connor could flush, he might in that moment, just given the smile on his face.

Hank dresses nicely, too, because Connor might be onto something, and he thinks...well, he thinks Connor looks way fucking hotter than he does, but he still thinks they look good together as they walk out of the hotel.

The signing that afternoon is in New York City, and Hank fully expects his publishers to be there - it’s only a few blocks from their office. Connor is mostly quiet on the drive up, flipping his coin from time to time, although he does look at Hank at some point and say, “This will be the second career you’ve blown up for my sake, you know.”

“Yeah, well. Guess that means I haven’t found the right career yet.”

Hank squeezes his hand, and Connor smiles. “You should...” he starts, although he stops before he finishes the thought, leaving Hank gaping at him.

“What?”

Connor shrugs, a hint sheepish. “You should come work with me. Amanda would hire you. And you’re a good writer, and you’re familiar with the law...you could help Markus and Josh with outreach, probably. I mean, I still think you should write another book...your publishers might know everyone, but if it’s good enough, you could still find someone to publish it. But...you know. Just an idea. If you wanted to.”

The truth is that Hank has missed public service since he was terminated from the DPD. There was so much bad shit about that job, and it’s not one he would ever return to, but he wanted - wants - to help people, and it did scratch that itch every now and again.

He’s never considered the type of work Connor is talking about, nothing with any sort of non-profit, but...

“Yeah,” Hank says, because Connor is fussing with his hands in his lap nervously, even if he hasn’t said anything. “Shit, yeah. I’d like that.”

“You’d be good at it,” Connor says, and the thing of it is, Hank actually thinks he might be right.

It still sort of creeps up on Hank in recovery sometimes, this optimism, a sense of purpose, feelings about himself that go beyond apathy. It’s nice. It always is, but it’s nicer experiencing it with Connor beside him.

When they get to the bookstore in New York, their car drops them off and then drives itself to park, leaving Connor and Hank standing outside on the sidewalk. Connor slips his hands into his jacket pocket and says, “Can I kiss you?”

He’s asking because Hank’s publishers may very well be inside, watching, but Hank doesn’t care.

“Always,” he says, and Connor smiles, taking Hank by the lapels of his jacket and pulling him in. There’s a possessive edge in him that Hank loves when Connor takes his lower lip between his teeth, and Hank thinks his career as a published author never stood a fucking chance, not when he would so much rather kiss his partner in this moment instead.

And maybe Connor feels the same, because it seems like some of his fear is gone.

They’re in this. Together.

Hank takes Connor’s hand when they part, and they walk inside. The bookstore is in a busy part of the city, so there are people milling around, plenty of them - some of them waiting for the signing, and others just browsing. Hank sees Molly through the crowd first, and then beside her, his publishers, Ray and Will.

Connor must run facial recognition on them, because he goes just the smallest bit stiff at Hank’s side, which Hank understands - their distaste is apparent, and it’s not more than a moment before Ray is closing the distance between them.

“Molly was supposed to call you,” Ray says when he reaches them.

Hank just tilts his head. “She did. She explained your position very thoroughly.” He squeezes Connor’s hand. “Come on, baby.”

Ray steps into Hank’s path when they try to pass. “He needs to leave,” he says under his breath, nodding at Connor.

“It’s a public event,” Hank says.

“There’s not much legal recourse for you here,” Connor adds practically, which Ray clearly doesn’t appreciate.

“You’re representing us,” he says to Hank. “Our image. And this is not a good luck for your novel. We’re trying to ensure your success...”

Hank shrugs. “I actually don’t really care about my success.”

“Hank,” Ray says. “Come on. We like you. Don’t...”

“Listen,” Hank says, “I know you’re technically my boss or whatever, but you’re being a fucking prick, and this is about as transparent as you could possibly be. Now let us sit down before this gets ugly.”

It would be the opportunity for Ray to fold, to just sit down and let this go, but people don’t like to lose or cave, Hank supposes, because he still moves to block Hank’s path when he tries to start forward.

“We’re going to cancel this tour, right now, if you can’t abide by our wishes for how this book be presented.”

“Okay,” Hank says, and Connor squeezes his hand. “Cancel it.”

“You’re not serious.”

“I am, actually. Let us sit down, or cancel it.”

Ray looks at Hank, and then at Connor, and then around them, at Molly and Will and the other people watching. He’s trying to weigh the cost, Hank supposes, but he’s stubborn, because he still says, “Okay. Fine. Then the rest of your appearances this week are canceled.” 

“Cool,” Hank says, wrapping an arm around Connor’s shoulders. “Let’s go, sweetheart.”

Connor kisses Hank’s cheek and throws a middle finger in Ray’s direction while he does it, and they’re both smiling as they leave the store together.

Behind them, Hank can hear the questions starting - where are they going, is the signing still happening, and so on. He doesn’t listen to Ray trying to explain, because he knows he can’t.

“Pretty shit publicity for them,” Connor says as they start walking down the sidewalk towards their car.

Hank pulls him in and kisses his hair, “Yeah,” he says softly. “It is. Are you okay?”

“Are you?”

“I asked you first,” Hank says, “but yeah. I’m good.”

“I’m good, too.” Connor smiles. “You want to go back to D.C.?”

“I was actually thinking we could see about flights to Detroit. Since you’re off for a few more days. Sumo would probably like to see you...if that’s not too much of a change of plans.”

Connor wraps an arm around Hank’s waist and pulls him close. “I’d like that,” he says.

“Cool,” Hank says. He sighs, letting some of that adrenaline leave him, nothing but calm in its wake. “Let’s go home, then.”

Connor winds Hank’s tie around his hand and uses it to pull him in and kiss him, and Hank thinks, for someone who can’t keep a job, he’s really fucking lucky.

* * *

In the end, Connor was the one who saw it going the way it did. They sat beside each other on that flight to Detroit, holding hands, when Connor looked over at Hank and said, “I think it’s going to be a bestseller. Your book, I mean. I think them canceling the rest of your tour ensured it.” 

Hank should know by now that Connor is usually right. He didn’t give it much thought as they drove through the familiar streets of Detroit, because his success wasn’t high on his list of priorities, and he didn’t think about it as he unlocked the door and he watched Sumo stop short when he saw Connor, the recognition flooding his face in the moment before he made his best effort to bowl him over, tail happily slapping the furniture.

Hank certainly wasn’t thinking about his book as they all fell asleep cuddled together that night, his bed a tight squeeze for the three of them even if none of them minded.

It wasn’t until a few days later, when Connor is packing to go home, that some of the first news about his tour was starting to break, the think pieces about his publishers trying to remove Connor from the equation. Hank isn’t surprised by it - Molly has been trying to get a hold of him to connect him with some of those reporters who have been requesting comments from him - but he is surprised by how sympathetic so much of the publicity is. There’s a picture of him and Connor floating around on a lot of those articles, taken by someone at the canceled signing in New York, taken at the moment Connor flipped Hank’s publisher off while kissing Hank’s cheek, and Hank sees it immediately, that Connor looks like someone brave, who you want to root for...someone good.

He’s glad so many other people seem to see it, too.

Hank’s book finds its place on numerous bestseller lists after that - Hank knows mostly just because Connor tells him as he drives him to the airport. Hank walks with him inside the lobby and kisses him, and it’s the same as when he dropped him off to fly to D.C. two years ago, and still so different.

Hank slips the notebook with all his scribbles about his novel into Connor’s bag as he turns to go, like he promised he would. Connor will find it on the flight, or when he gets home, read the last lines Hank knows by heart, even if they never made it into the book. “Will you still love me after forever?” Saul asks, and that’s where the book leaves the reader, but Hank, and now Connor, know Alexander’s answer. 

“I would have loved you anywhere, for any duration of time given to me,” he says. “And I’ll love you in heaven, too, for as long as we have here. Nothing lasts forever, but we’ll do with it what we can, and be glad for the time we have.”

There’s a line in there to close it that Hank couldn’t put in the book, because his androids were written to look different and so they didn’t have the LED, but Saul kisses Alexander and watches his LED circle, the tears in his eyes making the cool blue look like fractured light...

Connor texts Hank a picture of his book cover later that night, once he’s back at his apartment - the familiar cover art Hank chose, the abstract fractals of color and light, the neat typography that reads “And Heaven, Too.”

“I get it,” Connor writes, and fuck, Hank thinks, he wrote the damn thing, but he gets it, too.

He’s already looking for apartments in D.C., but with the unexpected success of his book, he thinks maybe he’ll try to buy something instead. He wants Sumo to have a yard, and there’s a part of him that wants to give Connor that, too - somewhere safe, somewhere his.

In a week, he’ll fly out to go to Chloe and Amanda’s wedding with Connor and to look at places, and then a few weeks after that, he’ll pack his life up, a life that’s only ever been in Detroit, and leave it all behind.

It would feel like an ending, Hank thinks, but it’s like his book, really - open, malleable, with so much waiting on the other side. 

Endings are always open, Hank thinks.

And that is, he thinks as his phone vibrates at his side and Connor’s face lights up his screen, as he says, “Hey, baby,” and he hears the smile in Connor’s voice, a quiet but incredible thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My lovely friend [Doomy](https://twitter.com/doomcheese) did this incredible [art](https://twitter.com/doomcheese/status/1301908286338478081) inspired by this fic, with Connor stealing some Hank's cardigans as a gift for my birthday - go check it out and give her some love!
> 
> I'm on [Twitter](http://twitter.com/Jolli_Bean) and [Tumblr.](http://jolli-bean.tumblr.com) Come chat with me, and thank you for reading! 
> 
> Also sorry I'm still so awful at replying to comments lately, but as always I really appreciate all of you and all of your kind words! 💕 I do also have another fic that I've been working on and will start posting soon that I'm really excited to share with y'all, so I'll see y'all soon. 💕


End file.
